Etihad Airways Expanding Airbus A380 Fleet: Nine Jets Set To Fly

I’d say back to JFK. YYZ is peculiar in that the UAE is highly restricted in total flights, so it makes sense to fly your largest craft there.

I suggest to stay back and enjoy the city because once the times goes never comes back so set back and relax and have night travel and have a safe journey and choose the correct air craft

Small correction, Ben: A6-APE is already flying. It is A6-APA that will be scrapped. EY’s A380 fleet will be even better than QR’s, since 9/10 will be in the air compared to 8/10 at QR.

BA remains the only airline not to have retired even a single A380, not counting NH’s small fleet of three A380s.

I see the extra two planes being used to cities like New York and Sydney

Long distance , high traffic and good connecting traffic for Etihad airways

I'd love to see them back in SYD but I wonder if the staggered return could see an extra mid haul destination/frequency in northern summer 2026 followed perhaps by another in early 2027. An upguage of the 4th LHR service to the A380 to offer a consistent product? Double daily to CDG? Or perhaps another market - looking at A380 capable airports where they currently fly their higher capacity A350s and 777s could potentially lend us to a MAN, NRT, AMS, BKK or perhaps more flights to India. Time will tell, very good news nonetheless.

Nice to see 2 daily A380s with top-grade F flying daily from my hometown YYZ. I've been positioning to ORD/NYC for decades; nice to see my American friends positioning to my hometown for a change. Ben hinted recently he'll be reviewing The Residence soon. I'll take a bet on the route...

Asiana also brought all of their six A380s back - maybe this too was a small fleet to be not counted? Otherwise those three airlines seem to be the only ones.

Clearly, Etihad has figured out the economics of the A380. As such, after these ships are back in service, what would be incredibly interesting is if Etihad buys retired or underused A380s and expands its A380 service. You heard it here first.

Sorry, I wasn’t aware that Asiana brought all of them back; I thought one was always parked. Having flown an OZ A380 myself on the hop to NRT a couple of months back, I should’ve known better!

Is it worth it to start building them again? there seems to be a nice size Demand.

Spoke too soon. Doesn't make Ben's Etihad fiasco my fault, tho'.

Definitely not. They're starting their old ones up because it's all they can get their hands on. What the carriers really want is 777x, A350-1000, A321XLR etc. Supply is so backlogged, carriers are flying anything they can.

btw I love your handle. When Emirates began A380 service to YYZ years ago, a journo did a piece on the experience. YYZ in those days had no multiple-jetbridge gates, so all pax boarded through one single door, regardless of aircraft type. The reporter said that upon disembarking in YYZ it was 75 minutes from the moment the first pax left the plane, to when she did.

I may try it someday in F but Y? Not curious.

I'll bet strongly against that. they're not flying them because they prefer them to other types; they're flying A380 because all new Airbuses are backordered, Boeing's in meltdown, demand is roaring and they've got the wretched things sitting in the desert. It was the best of all the bad options. If they could replace each one with a 777x tomorrow, they'd scrap them faster than you can say "beached".

I hope the Etihad A380 flies to JFK again, it would be sorry if it didn't fly to the USA. Flying medium haul to CDG, LHR and Singapore is not long enough to experience such an airplane.

Spot on!

Which is precisely why it makes less sense to fly it here. NYC passengers didn't pay substantially higher fares than London/Paris, yet is almost twice the distance and fuel burn.

So if you're Etihad, and you're getting similar fares by flying the aircraft 7hrs, as you're getting by flying it 13hrs; which one are you going to prefer? Not a hard choice.

Why are they only being brought back in 2026 and then 2027?

Forget the Residence if travelling as a couple. All those I have spoken to who have tried the suits agree that 3&4 A, or, 3&4 K, are the best.