AC: A343, A345

[Guest B747-8]

What will happen to the A343,and the A345 when the B77W, and the B77L come into service? I heard that they will be retired. Will they sold to another airline, or scrapped?

[Guest bjjones]

All 767s, A330s and A340s will be disposed of, 787s and 777s taking their respective places in the fleet.The A340-500s are both schedule to leave the fleet in September and US Airways has expressed interest in taking them for flights to China I believe.Out of 13 delivered A343s, 4 have gone and are with other operators, two more should be going this month, one more in June and one in October. That will leave 6 in service at the end of 2007 with 5 77Ws and 3 77L in the fleet, the remaining will switch over in 2008, With the last two 777s, both Freighter arriving last in 2009.On the 787s arrival (in 2010), 767s should be first out and following those the A330s will begin to leave aswell. There are 14 787s on firm order so at some point they will need to exercise some or all of their 46 options to cover what will be getting replaced (52 A330/767)It has been rumoured that there is a clause in the Boeing contract which says should Air Canada fail to sell any of their Airbus' on themselves then Boeing will take them over and sell /dispose of them on AC's behalf.

[Mace 1,904]

I doubt they will scrap them--they probably have quite a few more hours left on the airframes--so probably as was said they will be sold.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

[Guest B747-8]

Also why is AC replacing the interiors in the A330, and the 767, when they will be replaced, in two to three years after the work is done? Didn't the A345 join the fleet in 2004? Why are they being replaced?

[Cessnaflyer 56]

On replacing the interiors on the A330 and the B767s;Depending on the time they have on the airframes there are scheduled maintenance checks on the aircraft. These checks known as letter checks usually follow the same pattern for all airlines. The A check is usually every 100 hours and is basically a more in-depth walk around done by the mechanics to visually check the systems. The B check is approximately every 750 hours and this is when the maintenance happens on the wear and use items like filters and fluids. The C check is like having an annual on a GA aircraft done and that is when most everything about the airframe, electronics, and engines is checked over very closely. The big one of all the checks is the D check where the airframe is stripped of all interior furnishings. The D check happens about every 20,000 flight hours or roughly 6-8 years depending on the use of the aircraft, which could be what AC is planning to do to their A330s and 767's. The aircraft is basically stripped to it's skin to make sure every inch of cable, wires, plumbing and structure is just how it came out of the factory. Basically they want to service the airplane so that it is like a brand new zero time airplane.At the D check time this is when an aircraft can be repainted to a new livery, new or updated interiors installed, and different in cabin passenger amenities like in seat video systems. This is where some people mistake that the changes of livery's and interiors as a big budget killer because they have to repaint the whole fleet. What the most people don't know is that this is in the normal maintenance schedule to do this once they get to a D check.