Digicola

If AF had any doubts regarding the future of the fleet the accident above greenland must have accelerated its demise. Grounding one just made the already rather small fleet even smaller and the logistics of recovering from such an incident are no joke.

AF was unfortunate to have one of the early builds and it entered the fleet at a time when AF management was high on something very strong because they made very questionable decisions. And unlike LH which quickly swapped out old cabins when they changed to lie flat seats AF�s NEV3 soldiered on.

I was fortunate enough to fly AF�s A380 one last time on the 10th March 2023. A few hours after my arrival in the US Trump had decided to close the borders to Europeans and Delta cancelled all flights to/from Europe overnight leading to absolute chaos. The capacity of the whale was greatly needed to ferry people back home.

Sad the fleet is shrinking but AF runs a much more coherent operation these days, too bad the F vacuum still hasn�t been sealed with the likes of JNB, PVG, and HKG still not seeing and LP service.

So to answer the question, AF probably did retire the A380 early because it was left with a capacity vacuum that is gonna take years to fill as new deliveries come. But nothing assures is they would have been able to operate them, especially during the 2022 summer meltdown. Secondly, we still complain that 2 non retrofitted 777 are flying around. We�d just have 10 more frames to worry about otherwise.

ofj

you mean 2020, correct?

Digicola

Naturally, seems like my brain doesn�t like looking at the past too much.

ofj

Yeah - I do wonder if these routes will ever have LP again. It would be amazing if F came back - even if the miles required are already astronomical

NickB

Has it really? How many routes are flown by major airlines (other than LCCs whose model has always been point-to-point anyway) from a non-hub location?

ofj

I agree - most major airlines still use the Hub & spoke system, or so it feels. I've read tons of articles stating that one of the reasons the 747-8 and 380 ended so early was because more airlines were using point - to - point, but that's not the reality for most major carriers. If this was as claimed, I could just fly ESB - DTW nonstop (a route I travel on several times per year) and life would be so much easier. Heck, those 2 are both important locations yet I have to jump through 1-2 (sometimes 3, depending on price) stops to get to my final destination!

hhdl

Most network airlines run hub-and-spoke. However those hubs are getting more spokes, which reduces the number of city-pairs where going through multiple hubs is required. It wasn't that long ago that someone flying, say, IND-PRG would have to fly (ATL/CVG/JFK)-CDG or (DTW/MSP)-AMS or (ORD/IAD)-FRA or (ORD/DFW)-LHR, now it's IND-CDG-PRG or IND-JFK-PRG (or equivalent on other alliances/JVs).

San Gottardo

It's rare to see airlines fly between cities where none of them is a hub either for the airline itself or at least for an alliance partner. In fact I cannot think of any, with the obvious exception of leisure airlines. But not "network" airlines.

But there are routes that previously did not exist which are, as mentioned above, additional spokes to the hub. The A321LR helps. Lisbon-Maceio or Aalborg-EWR where unthinkable not too long ago.

brunos

I had started to write a detailed explanation of what I meant, but then got pressed by time and just wrote this misleading sentence.
This was relating to A380s, the topic of the current thread.
One model is to have a high-capacity plane like A380 fly the longhaul to a "major" destination and then smaller planes, from the same airline or often a partner, fly to the nearby "secondary" destinations.
Now we see multiply PtoP longhaul routes with smaller fuel efficient planes (B787, A350 and soon A321), strengthening competition of that model.

Sure airlines still only operates longhaul from their hub(s). We all agree on that. But they fly to many "secondary" destinations that used to be only accessible by tranisting at "major" destinations.
I guess that my point of view is from the pax side rather than the airline side. Lots of nonstops options are now available from or to many secondary destinations. Again, I am not disputing what we discussed in the NCE thread that airlines only fly from their hub. That is a different point. But competition is increasing because foreign airlines can viably fly direct to these "secondary" destinations, (from their hub) while the domestic airline can only offer a Hub&Spoke option.

brunos

I had the chance to fly with wifey HKG-SIN on the SQ893 newly-redesigned A380. SQ invested over USD800 million for the the renovation of all its A380s.
The new seats are spectacular.
I just had a quick glance at the new F suites that seems amazing.
But the middle business seats are truly amazing for a couple. They transform into a real double bed (could not use because of the short flight).

EK has also engaged in a luxury retrofit of their A380s and BA is starting too.

Goldorak

Good to know
I miss this plane, it was great. I flew it about 50 times, among which about 40 with AF. Too bad that AF decided to install seats that were already outdated at the time the planes were put in service (remember that the first 4 or 5 frames had NEV3 seats ).

Sjondorn

I miss A380 as well but AF configuration was ... meh. Flew relatively recently DXB-SFO in J with Emirates, the seat was great as well as an actual bar / lounge area.

brunos

I
This is the SQ new double bed.

Anyone knows what happened to the old AF frames?

Fabo.sk

Half are scrapped, rest are still stored at Lourdes.

brunos

BA is renovating their 12 A380s, in particular with new F and J seats. The retrofit will go till late 2016, so they plan to use them for another 10 years or so.
They are also looking to buy 6 used one to reach a fleet of 18.
That is partly their answer to the lack of available new planes.
Unfortunately AF had to small a fleet to take that route. But maybe they will sell them to BA.