This week, Flight Friday looks at the Airbus A380.
The outbreak of the COVID pandemic was not kind on the Airbus double decker. The huge drop in travel demand, and the A380’s relative lack of belly cargo capacity, led to almost no flights being operated by the aircraft from April to June 2020.
Operators, like Air France, started to retire aircraft from their fleets, sending them to be torn down. Other operators seemed happy to remove the aircraft from their fleet, with some saying that they would never return the A380 into service. Fast forward to 2023 and the A380 has received a reprieve.
Due to high travel demand, a pilot shortage, and new build delivery delays due to either supply chain/workforce issues or Boeing 787 issues, the A380 looks like a very interesting proposition again.
Since the lows of the 2020 second quarter, the A380’s global utilization has slowly climbed back to a little over 60% of equivalent utilization on 2019. As of June 2023, almost 68% of A380s are back in service.
With the A380 forming the backbone of the Emirates fleet, the Gulf operator was always going to push the aircraft back into service. Other Gulf carriers, however reluctant, have also returned the aircraft back into service, even if just for a few years to get them over the current jump in demand. European carriers, except Air France, have put the A380 back into service, and with the slot constrained London Heathrow, British Airways will be operating the aircraft into the future.
With continued high demand, the ongoing new build delays, and other outside factors (i.e., slot restricted airports like Heathrow, or the incoming restrictions at Amsterdam Schiphol), aircraft that can carry a large number of passengers on a single flight all of a sudden look favorable again, at least until the 777-9 comes along and can carry a similar passenger load with two engines.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool and Fleet Discovery
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