Had a look at the fleet list earlier and it's rather staggering that out of the active fleet of A380's, 18 of them are currently grounded. This figure doesn't take into account the six frames stored at DWC awaiting their return to service, but does with the 7 frames away for major maintenance (C Checks and Wing Spar repairs) at other locations (EDV, EEV, EUF, EUL, EUQ, EUU & EUX) and 5 currently awaiting their return to action following storage at DWC (EDF, EDN, EDX, EET and EUZ). Yet whilst other operators around the world, such as BA with their 787 fleet are suffering with shortages of aircraft and having to cancel flights, this doesn't seem to have affected Emirates in terms of their operations.

This leaves two questions unanswered for me - firstly are Emirates experiencing any kind of A380 shortage with their fleet, or is there enough slack in the A380 fleet to allow a number to be grounded and still be able to comfortably run their full schedule? And secondly, how close are Emirates back to operating their pre-pandemic schedule if they are not already back to pre-covid levels? I believe there are some routes that were A380 before the pandemic which are still 777, such as CPH, KUL, and one FRA rotation but we know CPH is returning to A380 ops soon.

I suppose the only signs that Emirates may have a shortage of A380's is that older 777's are still flying, however that's also connected to the 777X delays and the A350 rollout will surely see some of the older 77W's depart. I also don't think it's the reason why no more A380's have been retrofitted with premium economy and the 777's have been prioritised instead. Surely EK could fit some of the grounded frames under maintenance at DXB with premium if they really wanted to.
Hopefully it won't be long before most of these aircraft are back in the air, including the six remaining at DWC. It'll be interesting to see what Emirates can achieve with a fully active A380 fleet.