News
Emirates A380 cancellations shift route patterns in Asia-Pacific
February 15th 2019
The A380 was making news in the Asia-Pacific long before Emirates cancelled its remaining order and Airbus terminated the programme this week. Read More » Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) has established for its A380s a pilgrimage charter unit named Amal, Arabic for hope or aspiration for its . The business case study was carried out under internal name Project Hope.
Malaysia’s A380s have been flying to Saudi Arabia for religious flights. Reported comments have said MAB wants to change perceptions that Hajj and Umrah travel demand only is in economy. This suggests the carrier will not conduct an expensive yet CASK-enticing retrofit of its 494 seat A380s configured to accommodate eight first, 66 business and 420 economy passengers.
The highest-capacity A380 is Emirates’ two-class version with 615 seats, well below the 700 or 800 seat versions pitched for all-economy operations and its certified maximum cabin of 868 passengers.
Meanwhile, Etihad will bring its 496 seat A380 to Seoul Incheon from 1 July as a replacement for its B787-10 service that carries a maximum of 336 passengers. Seoul has been reluctant to significantly expand traffic rights for Gulf airlines, which for a long time operated only one flight a day to South Korea. Emirates, briefly, served the route eight times a week.
Etihad appears to be up-gauging to maximise its traffic rights, which are based on frequency and not seat capacity. It will also pull an A380 service from Sydney, reducing capacity after Emirates did the NSW capital. Qatar Airways, a oneworld member, is looking for more traffic rights into Australia, but is facing fierce opposition from Qantas. Oneworld’s Qantas partners with Emirates and Qantas does not provide a single domestic codeshare to Qatar.
Qatar’s A380s will be retired when they turn 10 in 2024, according to an interview in the Aviation Analyst with Group CEO, Akbar Al Baker. This strategy further weakened the A380’s residual values and second-hand opportunities.
Air France, under the management team of new group CEO, Ben Smith, and airline CEO, Anne Rigail, revised its A380 plan, with Rigail telling Le Journal du Dimanche Air France will return three of its 10 A380s (five owned, five leased) to lessors.
The financial community expected Airbus to make better use of plant infrastructure while selling better-performing A350s – perhaps one day an “A350neo” - as Airbus and Rolls-Royce discuss a re-engine of the A350.
In lieu of the A380s, Emirates will take 40 A330neos and 30 A350s. This should be viewed in tandem with Etihad’s same-day announcement to revise downwards its order book. Details are opaque with conflicting reports, but Flightglobal expected Etihad to cancel 42 of its 62 A350s. Etihad’s 777X order is more of an unknown.
Emirates likely received extremely favourable pricing so it would quickly agree to withdraw its A380 orders, allowing Airbus to end the A380 programme ahead of a management transition in April.
Emirates’ deal with Airbus sees the Dubai giant once again be a customer for the A350 while injecting sales into the sluggish A330neo programme. Finally, the Airbus deal seems to firmly shut out the B787 from Emirates. The 2017 Emirates MoU for 40 B787-10s had lapsed.
