According to upper management, ‘One aircraft is down a week’ and they can’t wait to find a suitable replacement.
What are the details?
Air France currently operates 10 Airbus A380s.
Five of these aircraft will be retired by 2019-21.
The other remaining five aircraft will be refurbished with renewed cabins starting in 2020.
The current A380’s have a somewhat tired fit-out,
missing many of the modern passenger conveniences that other airlines boast.
A380 operators like Emirates have amazing facilities,
such as private suites, lie-flat seats in business and in-seat power.
Air France originally took ownership of the A380 back in 2009
and the cabin has only seen marginal improvements since then.
There are a few reasons why Air France is set on retiring this series of aircraft.
The first is that they are not as profitable as smaller aircraft.
A smaller aircraft is easy to fill up with passengers (and thus have a sold-out aircraft more frequently)
and costs less to operate (weighs less and requires less fuel).
Additionally, the A380 requires special airports (with long runways, taxiways, and extended gates)
and is therefore limited in where it can operate.
Secondly, the A380 has had some performance issues at Air France.
According to La Tribune, Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith prefers smaller planes that generate higher yields.
Moreover, he is overwhelmed by the multiple failures on these devices.
“Every week, there is one that is down”.
An aircraft that isn’t flying is just an expensive paperweight.
Air France wants to replace the A380s with a smaller aircraft.
So far, they are looking at the Boeing 787 or the Airbus A330-900neo.
Whilst an easy choice might be the unproven Boeing 777X or the new A350-1000,
the former is still suffering delays and the latter is too expensive for the airline.
Of the 10 Airbus A380 that Air France has on file:
•Three are leased.
The airline will choose to not renew these contacts in 2019-2020.
•Five are owned by the airline.
Three of these are confirmed to be upgraded with the new Air France cabin.
•The last two are also leased, but their contracts don’t expire for a few more years
and thus might be additionally updated with the new cabin.
Air France would prefer to update as few aircraft as possible.
They would prefer to invest in building a new cabin concept for the A380 replacement
when they get around to choosing an aircraft.
We expect more news from the airline by October 2019.
That would be a shame. As a passenger (in economy class) I found these A380's the best and most comfortable planes we have ever used. That goes for the ones operated by Air France as well as those operated by Emirates.
Air France orders 60 Airbus A220-300, retires A380 fleet by 2022
30 July 2019
The Air France-KLM Board of Directors approved several strategic decisions
concerning the development of the Air France fleet,
following a meeting on July 30, 2019.
These decisions reflect the Group’s focus on simplification.
Making the fleet more competitive,
by continuing its transformation with more modern, high-performance aircraft
with a significantly reduced environmental footprint is key to achieving leading industry margins.
•Firm order for 60 A220-300s, with 30 options and 30 acquisition rights, which will gradually replace Air France’s A318 and A319 fleet
•Retirement of the 10 A380s from the Air France fleet by 2022,
and study of the replacement of A380s by new generation aircraft
The Air France-KLM Board of Directors today approved the retirement in principle
of the remaining seven A380s from the Air France fleet by 2022,
the phase out of three additional aircraft having been decided previously.
Five of these aircraft are owned by the company, while two are leased.
Wildpicture wrote:That would be a shame. As a passenger (in economy class) I found these A380's the best and most comfortable planes we have ever used. That goes for the ones operated by Air France as well as those operated by Emirates.
The airline wanted to operate the XL aircraft for another three years.
But because of the Corona crisis, Air France is withdrawing its Airbus A380 from service immediately.
Air France has today announced the retirement of its nine remaining Airbus A380 aircraft.
The French flag carrier had already intended on a 2022 retirement before the outbreak of the current pandemic.
Air France had previously communicated
that it would study an early retirement of the giant of the skies when it last released its financial results.
Unfortunately for some, today, the airline finally pulled the plug on the Airbus A380 fleet.
In a press release the airline said:
“The Air France-KLM Group announces today the definitive end of Air France Airbus A380 operations.”
Air France attributed the immediate retirement to a desire to operate a more competitive fleet with higher performance and a reduced environmental footprint.
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