By the end of next year, all Emirates A380s will be operational once more.
The superjumbo’s ascent is being fueled by the burgeoning demand for travel.
The Gulf superpower Emirates plans to restock its fleet by December 2023 with all of its Airbus A380 double-deckers after years of restricted capacity due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The superjumbo is both the centerpiece and the showpiece of Emirates’ international network, transporting passengers via its mega-hub in Dubai to and from every corner of the globe.
Adnan Kazim, the chief commercial officer of Emirates, stated in Dubai that all of the current A380s would be put back into service “near to the end of next year,” enabling the airline to recover the final 20% of capacity that it is holding back.
Emirates is the largest A380 customer for Airbus, owning about 120 of the aircraft. Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, has stated that his airline will continue to operate A380s through the middle of the 2030s, despite Airbus’ cancellation of superjumbo manufacturing in 2019 due to a lack of demand.
The airline already operates more than 70 A380s, and roughly half of the fleet is having interior upgrades, including the installation of new premium economy seats.
Etihad, a competitor and neighbor of the UAE, also has plans to revive four A380s beginning in mid-2023 on routes between Abu Dhabi and London Heathrow, freeing up space to add more routes and bring back more destinations.
As travel demand grows and new planes from Airbus and Boeing become slow to arrive, Lufthansa will also join the northern summer of the superjumbo. This airline has also decided to reverse a decision made during the pandemic to retire the aircraft.
While eight A380s are still on the books, six of the Star Alliance member’s 14 superjumbos have already been sold back to Airbus.
In front of a mid-year debut on premium international routes from Munich, the first of these has already been flown out of storage from Spain to Frankfurt. Between two and four more are anticipated to follow.
The entire 12-aircraft A380 fleet of British Airways is back in the air, as are all 11 of Singapore Airlines’ A380s.
A spokeswoman for Singapore Airlines informs Executive Traveller that the “twelfth and last A380 is now being refitted and is anticipated to re-enter service during the 2023/24 financial year.”
With plans for four more A380s to take flight by the end of 2023, Qantas, which put its 12 A380s into storage at the beginning of the pandemic, has seen a happy return of half of those aircraft.
But when two additional A380s were judged surplus to needs and scrapped for components, Qantas decided to draw the line.
