Hawaiian Airlines was Airbus’ sole customer for the A330-800neo, with an order of six aircraft placed shortly after the Farnborough Air Show in July 2014. Since then, Airbus hasn’t been able to land another customer for the new aircraft till Uganda Airlines made a purchase order for two!

The -800 has a slightly longer range and slightly smaller fuel burn than the larger variant but airlines have been opting for the -900 instead of the -800. The bigger one seats about 280 to 300 and flies comfortably across the Atlantic or from the US West Coast to East Asia. It costs less than the more advanced but similarly sized A350-900, and can do a lot of the high-traffic, daily jobs connecting hubs that airlines make money from on long-haul routes. The smaller -800 promised to go much farther nonstop, in exchange for fewer seats — but apparently not far enough.