When the Airbus A380 was officially launched in December 2000, the manufacturer had high hopes for the aircraft. Airbus hoped that large hubs that move a large number of people at once would become the basis of the aviation industry.
So why did Airbus finally cancel production of the A380 on Valentine’s Day 2019?
In part, the industry pivoted to direct, point-to-point traffic that allowed aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, as well as the Boeing 777, to thrive. The A380’s four wing-mounted engines were detrimental, with operating costs, in addition to the high cost of acquiring such a large aircraft, forcing airlines to think twice before order the Super Jumbo.
But recently, especially after a difficult peak travel season in 2022, airlines have once again considered that the Airbus A380 offers capacity to meet demand. Aircraft capacity figures have grown year-on-year (YoY) and Month-on-Month (MoM) globally and are expected to continue to grow as more and more airlines look to restore the double-decker aircraft for next summer in 2023.
Does this mean that the Airbus A380 is experiencing a resurgence and that we are potentially seeing the growth phase of the Super Jumbo?
Airlines that restore the Airbus A380
In total, 14 airlines have ordered the Airbus A380 since its official announcement on 19 December 2000, and have continued to do so following the announcement on 14 February 2019 that the manufacturer would cancel production of the airplane
Of the 14, including the 15th operator, Hi Fly Malta, which took over a cell from the ex-Singapore Airlines, eight currently fly the double-decker. In addition, Lufthansa and Etihad Airways have started the process of restoring the type after several years of storage.
Lufthansa already moved two Airbus A380s out of their long-term storage location at Teruel Airport (TEV), Spain, for maintenance checks. Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), flew a single Super Jumbo out of TEV on 30 January 2023.
In total, Etihad plans to restore four such aircraft, while Lufthansa initially planned to restore three and, if there is sufficient demand, add an additional five to its fleet by 2024. However, according to the comments from the German airline CEO Carsten Spohr during the presentation of the results of the third quarter of 2022 of the group, Lufthansa “will have to increase this figure [due to] the demand we see and also for operational reasons, three is not enough”.
Air France, China Southern Airlines, Malaysia Airways and Thai Airways have either withdrawn the aircraft entirely or announced no plans to return them to service. Earlier, a Thai Airways executive indicated that the carrier was deliberating whether to return the type. Hi Fly’s Maltese subsidiary ended its brief flirtation with the A380 in December 2020. China Southern Airlines’ last two Super Jumbos flew to Victorville Southern California Logistics (VCV) Airport, its hub for ‘permanent storage, on December 21, 2022.
Demand for more A380s?
As airlines take back more A380s, one executive, who has been a longtime supporter of the plane, warned that if airlines start phasing out Super Jumbos and Boeing 747s, fares will rise.
The executive was Emirates president Tim Clark, who spoke to AeroTime in November 2022. Clark warned that with all four-engine jets gone from the sky as demand continues to soar “and there is no longer there are such big planes, the capacity will go down, the rates will go up.”
“Perhaps it was a bit of an overachievement for Emirates, and there was a view among my competitor friends in the airline community that the fewer A380s in the toolbox of airlines like Emirates, the better, because it outperformed many of our competitor’s operations.” Clark continued. According to the executive, if infrastructure development at Dubai’s airports progressed as quickly as Emirates wanted, “then we would have 200 A380s flying.”
“That scared the pants off everybody,” Clark concluded.
However, the plane is not perfect. Clark also noted that the double-decker has engines that were “designed in the 1990s for the 1990s and the first part of the last decade.”
Engine technology has come a long way, including newer engines such as the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB in the Airbus A350 or the GE9X in the Boeing 777X. For example, the bypass ratio of the Trent XWB is 9.6:1, while the Trent 900, which powers the Airbus A380, is between 8.5 and 8.7:1. In simple terms, the higher the bypass ratio, the more efficient the fuel.
Fuel prices have always hampered the A380’s economics, as the more efficient twin-engine planes used much less fuel, in part because they had fewer engines and no plane comes close to the weight of the Super Jumbo. The maximum zero fuel weight (MZFW) of the Airbus A380, the weight of the aircraft without fuel and oil, is quite heavy, to say the least. The number varies between weight variants, ie between 361 tonnes (795,869 lb) and 373 tonnes (822,324 lb). The MZFW of the 747-8I is 295.2 tons (651,000 pounds), for example.
And even if crude prices have declined significantly from their peak of $120.61 in June 2022, they are still susceptible to price changes and political developments. A case in point could be the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)+ deciding to drastically cut oil production, reducing the global supply of oil even as demand continues to rise.
But airlines have little choice when it comes to how to prepare for the upcoming peak travel season. Airbus and Boeing are behind delivery schedules as ongoing supply chain issues have prevented both (and only) wide-body aircraft makers from delivering twin-aisle jets on time. Even if the airlines wanted more large jets on the market, Airbus and/or Boeing have their hands tied. The A380 and B747 factory tooling has been or will be replaced by the A321neo and 737 MAX assembly lines, respectively.
However, the love affair between airlines and the A380 is likely to continue for years, even if the airlines are unable to officially renew their affection for the Super Jumbo.
