Freighters for Garuda?

The President and CEO of Garuda Indonesia, Emirsyah Satar, has been widely quoted as saying the carrier will add three A330-200 Freighters to its fleet, with first delivery at the end of this year, and all three delivered by the end of 2013.

Jakarta-based Garuda signed an order with Airbus last week for eleven A330-300 passenger aircraft, but there was no mention of freighters, so it is not clear whether the carrier is planning to buy the A330-200Fs directly from Airbus,  or lease them from one of the lessors with units on order and available. That list would include Intrepid Aviation (15 A330-200Fs on order), MatlinPatterson (6), and OH Avion (8). 

Garuda does not currently operate any freighters, but does carry belly cargo in a 93-unit mixed passenger fleet made up mostly of Boeing 737 narrowbodies and Airbus A330 widebodies. If it does indeed acquire the three A330-200Fs, it will bring the total number of carriers to have ordered the type to eight, as shown below. In addition, the three lessors mentioned above have a total of 29 untis on order, but so far no end users have been announced.