Millhouse

No, not 380 dead. The A380 is dead - no longer making it as EK stopped buying it.

Interesting development - the resale market of the A380 was atrocious and EK buying new ones is only what kept the resale market up. The EK fleet is now probably worthless in the secondary market.

Pity, I do like the big metal bird but won't miss it jamming b'ham airport every time it lands and dumps 800 people and bags into a small regional airport.

TheShed

I also like traveling on the whale, and its sad that it didn't catch on. I doubt the resale would hurt EK much as I think most are leased? Wouldn't want to be the leasing companies balance sheet today

scrubbedexpat141

I love the big bird, it's fantastic and being low in the curve of the plane means the space for economy in my two favourite seats is just super.
Going on 777's feels cramped compared.

Millhouse

Good point... Dunno why but I always thought EK bought them and not leased them though?

scrubbedexpat142

The big twins rule!

jam25mack

Wasn't a great fan if i'm honest as the window seat is cattle class is just a bit too far away from the side so there's a big gap making it tricky to use as a head rest.

If the resale is so bad I might see what they are going for. I was only thinking the other day of upgrading my rental car.

Edo

It is so ironic that A380 was introduced to kill B747 but the last B747 (freighter version) will be still be built way past 2021 when the A380 program is scrapped.

Pulaski

I suspect that the resale value will increase, because if you have a business model that works with an A380 buying new is no longer an option, so buying used and refurbishing might be your best option. Equally existing operators of A380s may choose to hold them and refurbish them rather than selling them and replacing with a new one, so reducing the supply of used ones.

Millhouse

Pulaski

Emirates owns 109, but I think they have just cancelled most of the remaining 50 provisional orders, hence Airbus ending the program.

Singapore Airlines has 24, Lufthansa has 14, and next come BA and Qantas with a dozen each. AF, Korean, Etihad, and Qatar are the only others that reach double digits at 10-a-piece.

weasel decentral

The model has to be airports with restricted slots on long haul routes, where instead of needing two or three landing slots you can use one slot to belly flop this monster instead.

TheShed

Exactly this, and a very senior EK manager once told me that this is the prime reason why EK grew so fast (getting more people into fewer slots). The same EK manager told me that if they could've got the whale into Indian airports, they could have doubled the number of passengers. On average, only 30-35% of EK passengers are actually traveling to/from DXB so the whale made them the worlds largest international carrier due to their hub-to-hub strategy. Wonder how that works with big twins vs big twins traveling non-stop to final destinations?

If you think about it, EK now dominates the western Europe-Aus/NZ routes and similarly dominates Subcontinenet to USA. Some of my Indian friends playfully call EK, Indias' national airline

However, not sure how long they will have a hold on these routes with the new super long range Boeing planes coming along. I think Perth-London has already started and Sydney-UK is not far behind. If my geography and math is correct, won't be long before we see sub-continent to USA and beyond. What will EK do then?

Pulaski

Maybe they should just buy Air India and become India's national airline. The Indian government have being trying to off-load it for at least a decade, so are probably open to offers.

TheShed

Millhouse

Doesn't really explain the empty A380s going to kuwait etc.