brunos

When BA, LH, QR, SQ, etc reintroduced their A380s, they were already equipped with the current N generation in J & F.
AF A380s are N-1 generation, with their sloppy J NEV seats
BA already had solo seats in J. They are just moving to the N+1 generation fleetwide, just like AF starts doing but at a much slower pace. Unclear when the Club suite will be introduced on A280. In any case, not before 2025.
AF would have to retrofit BEFORE reintroducing the A380, but it was probably the plan to retire them, even before covid.

Wentworth

Hello, we loved the A380--so quiet, so smooth--but all the FA we've consulted (and there were many) unanimously said they hated working on it. One said it was an engineer's plane not one designed for FA's--too technical, too complex--AND the air conditioning was not first class. I'll add the beds in J were pretty uncomfortable. Cheers.

imkevinmc

It's hard to believe that's it's only 13 years since AF were flying A380s LHR-CDG for a few summer weekends. I booked an economy flight for �80 and then realised I could fly business for not much more. So I had 2 weekends in Paris. Only down side was that the A380 had to use an international terminal, so we had to endure full passport control. A lot of big birds arriving that day so it took more than 2 hours to clear passport control

flyertalker00143

I don't know what would be more cost effective.... buying 10 aircrafts almost full price and retire them after 10 years instead of 20-30 or retrofit and use them for 10 more years like other airlines.

Covid was not going to last forever and mid-term forecasts all predict booming demand for air travel. AF could have amortized them for 10 more years with a retrofit rather than almost a total loss after such a short lifespan.

mlin32

I don't think AF originally wanted to buy the A380. More likely there was political pressure to buy something made on its home turf as a symbol, so AF made a half-hearted purchase and never really cared about its long-term future.

Covid was an excuse for the AF management to ditch the A380.

BearX220

I think BA's fleet seems to have suffered more in storage for whatever reason.

San Gottardo

Next question: did Airbus stop the production of the A380 too quickly? It also would have needed an upgrade, ie bring the v2 of the A380 which would have been costly. In the longer run that might have been a good idea?

San Gottardo

Every flight between the UK and a foreign country requires passport controls (except Republic of Ireland). That was the case already before Brexit. Nothing to do with the A380, it�s the same for any plane type, as well as for train travel between the UK and the Continent.

flyertalker00143

Was it because they were expecting new orders from Emirates that never happened ?

Boeing started to promote its new 2-engines aircrafts and covid also happened.

Airbus should have indeed proposed a new version with 2 engines instead of 4 and it would probably have saved the programme�

instead they invested into the A350 which is now a best seller

ofj

I'm by no means an engineer, but - if the a380 could fly with just 2 engines with the same safety/efficiency, why was it originally designed with 4 engines then? Just curious...I'm thinking that there must be a reason why Airbus chose the a380 to have 4 engines at the very beginning...

brunos

I don't think that we need to reopen the discussion on the merits of A380s.
But, AF had already announced in July 2019 that A380s will leave the fleet by end of 2022. The covid crisis in early 2020 simply accelerated the process.

A380s were designed in early 2000s in another environment. With fuel prices much higher, and engine technological progress, a 4-engine plane makes little sense. And A380s were prone to technical problems. A v2 version made little economic sense. And switching to a 2-engine A380 would have meant designing a brand new plane.
Also the Hub&Spoke model has become less favored as smaller planes can fly international routes that are viable with a smaller fuel-efficient planes.

Maestro Ramen

There are some routes where it would have made operational sense, like CDG-JFK.... and that's probably it. If you run 2x 777 at 30mn interval you may as well run a 380.

As a pax and avgeek it's a plane I will miss fondly. Confort wise I dislike the 777 about as much as I love the 747, 350 and 380. And it also has always been the safest. You can say what you want about the modern safety of 2 engine planes, 4 engines is still a step above.

Would I fly it even with NEV4, yes, in a heartbeat!

It's part of the past though and the 748 is following close behind, Emissions wise it makes sense to retire, though Im sure a 380 at full capacity is not that bad, compared to some of the awful 763s that Delta is still flying today.

Maestro Ramen

P.S. I also heard that one reason that makes it less commercially viable is the lack of cargo space.

With 2 decks full of pax and just 1 cargo deck that's less available space for precious freight.

I'd have liked to see some combi versions! Anyone here remember flying the KL 744 combis?

maalloc

Hey!
We are all getting older and memory sure isn't getting better, but the combis were flying not that long ago... parsing my BPs, the last one was on Nov 2019, not even 4 years ago.

gkl

oh yes, first and only time in the 744 upper deck. MEX-AMS end of Feb 2020, shortly before... yes, we know, also their retirement....