The pandemic has caused the acceleration of Airbus A380 retirements. Air France, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, and Thai Airways have retired (or plan to retire) their A380 fleets, while Qatar Airways seems highly likely to retire its A380 fleet.
Continue reading: Malaysia Airlines Retiring Airbus A380 Fleet, Looking For Buyer
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
If Malaysia Airlines or one of the other airlines who are looking to get rid of their A380's got rid of them at the right price, seems to me like one of the big three (Delta, American, or United) could re-configure them and put them on a few select domestic routes with lots of passengers and high-paying business folks like LAX to JFK. Or maybe Spirit could buy a few of them and put it/them on routes like their LGA to LAX route and max it out at 853 passengers!
@JBR - Yup, A380 at LGA totally makes sense...
This plane is dead. Not even the ME3 want any more of them.
@ JBR - American, United, and Delta have no interest in A380, if not united and delta wouldn't even get rid of their 744 back in 2017, some of their 744 were not even 20 years old at the time. Spirit for sure wouldn't want them, you want to maximize profit you want a small plane but not a big plane, as the harder you have to fill seats, the cheaper the tickets, less profit you would make, and you know LGA can't even handle A380 right ?
Good point on LGA not accepting A380's, I didn't think of that. My Spirit reference was mostly for laughs, as being one of 853 passengers on a Spirit-operated plane would probably be the closest thing to hell that could be experienced in a passenger plane. And you are absolutely right about the Big 3 and no U.S. airline in general not previously wanting them for profit reasons, i.e. the difficulty in filling one up with paying passengers and paying off their investments in their A380's. However, if they are receiving used A380's in good condition for next-to-nothing and combine that with the huge influx of people in the U.S. wanting to fly post-pandemic and the airlines having a very difficult time accommodating them currently, it seems to me that on certain routes (like LAX to JFK or JFK to MIA) the A380 could work for U.S. airlines.
It seems there are very few airlines that see the A380 as part of their future. Singapore, Emirates and Qantas seem to think that the type does fit their plans, but I would guess they already have enough of them. Even if any of these airlines want more, the world seems to be awash with surplus A380s so buying them from MH isn't their most likely way to acquire them.
I hope that airlines will continue to fly these beautiful aeroplanes, but I can't see this set of six flying anywhere else just now.
Maybe Emirates will buy them for pennies on the dollar. The Sultan of Brunei could buy one but unlikely 6 of them. The other 5 should go to museums if Emirates doesn't want them. Maybe museums in Malaysia, Washington, Seattle, Duxford, Sinsheim (Germany). Alternatively, Puma (Arizona) and LeBourget.
Good luck in finding buyers for the A380. There are hundreds on sale right now and not many customers that I know.
Hard for 'hundreds' to be for sale when other than the ones used by Emirates - there are not many more than 100 in total.
Would love to go back to Sinsheim and see an A380 on a plinth next to the Concordes
It seems as though companies that dismantle planes and sell the parts are offering a better price than airlines? That’s my guess if the cruise line industry is anything to go by.
It’s a shame though… hopefully there are at least a few A380’s that go to museums so people can see the giant in person even if its wings are clipped. They shouldn’t have scrapped the first a380 that came out of the assembly line…
It seems as though companies that dismantle planes and sell the parts are offering a better price than airlines? That’s my guess if the cruise line industry is anything to go by.
It’s a shame though… hopefully there are at least a few A380’s that go to museums so people can see the giant in person even if its wings are clipped. They shouldn’t have scrapped the first a380 that came out of the assembly line…
LGA not possible, but how about airports with congested runways?
LHR in five year's time, because the third runway won't have happened (unless the green movement really does cause flying to reduce)
Others?
It would be interesting to see an analysis of whether there are any airlines out there for which picking up a few used A380's could make sense. Perhaps British Airways given how congested Heathrow is? Also, since ANA is using A380's to cater to tourist demand as opposed to business (given that they fly them all to Honolulu) I could potentially see a few other large tourist markets like Los Angeles and Paris when combined with the efficiencies of scale from having a few more units.
For these A380, Maybe a possible move to ANA All Nippon Airlines to expand their A380 fleet.
2 years later its a very different picture with most 380s back in service as the industry faces huge demand.