HiFly Takes Delivery of Its First A380

HiFly A380-841 9H-MIP (CN 006)            Photo Credit - Keith Pisani

Portuguese wet-lease company HiFly has become the world’s first second-hand A380 operator after receiving an ex-Singapore Airlines A380 on Thursday. MSN006, ex 9V-SKC, landed a couple of days ago at Malta Luqa airport after a flight from Singapore via Abu Dhabi. This aircraft will be painted in HiFly’s livery by Maltese-based Aviation Cosmetics and will be registered as 9H-MIP. 

                                                                                    IMAGE BY HiFLY

These A380s will be set to carry up to 471 passengers in a three-class layout. The main deck will feature twelve First class suites as well as 311 economy class seats, whilst the upper deck will include 60 Business class seats and 88 economy seats. However, upon request, the A380 could be reconfigured into a higher density layout. The airline has stated that all seats will feature Panasonic’s IFE product CX2. The Portuguese carrier has currently set a leasing agreement with Dr. Peters Group for the two ex-Singapore A380s. The delivery of the first A380 comes at the same time in which Hifly’s 2 extra A330s are delivered to Nepal Airways, which will be operating them. HiFly Malta currently operates a fleet of six A340-300s and two A330-200s. The fleet will soon include both new A380s. On the other hand, HiFly Portugal operates a more varied fleet of two A340-300s, two A340-500s, three A330-200s, and one A321.

9H-MIP first flew on 17th November 2006 making it 11 years 6 months old. It spent its 11 yrs with Singapore Airlines before going into storage in November 2017.
Its test registration was F-WWSC, it was 4 Rolls Royce Trent 970 engines.