Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument
Confusion; Distraction; Troubleshooting; Time Pressure
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Company Policy; Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure; Human Factors
Upon doing cockpit pre-flight to ferry Aircraft X out of long-term storage from ZZZ to ZZZ1; I noticed the aircraft was fueled improperly. The wing tanks were not full and were imbalanced; there was no fuel in the center tank and there was fuel in the ACT (auxiliary) fuel tanks. This is not the proper configuration for fueling the aircraft. The wing tanks must be full before there can be any fuel in the center tank and certainly there cannot be fuel in the ACT tanks in this scenario. We notified the mechanics onboard who were assisting us to make sure everything was good prior to departure. What ensued was a three-hour debacle trying to figure out how to drain the fuel from the ACT tanks and ensure the only fuel was in the wing tanks. Planned release fuel was 25k; which in this scenario should result in fuel only in the wing tanks. After the fueling issue was finally resolved; we received two separate ECAMS after engine start. Shut down the engines and called the mechanics back to fix the new issues. SMOKE DET Fault and ANTI ICE STBY L STAT. MX fixed those two issues and we finally departed over four hours late.Someone in ZZZ is not making sure [aircraft company] aircraft coming out of storage are fueled properly. This is the second time I have caught a problem. Someone less vigilant may miss the problem.This is the second fueling issue I have had with an aircraft coming out of storage from ZZZ in the past two weeks.
Air carrier Captain reported having an aircraft that was fueled incorrectly for a ferry flight.