Emirates Airline has already implemented its plan to retire its Airbus A380 jets. Recently, the company has shut down two aircraft to be used as a replacement component for the aircraft still operating. The Dubai airline, which received its first units from the world’s largest passenger plane in 2008, currently has 112 A380 models in the fleet.
“You’ll start seeing A380s coming out of our fleet for various reasons, and we’ve always said this,” Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, told Flight Global. “These are being dealt with on a tail-by-tail, month-by-month basis under a retirement that is well planned already.”
The A380 fleet is made up of a combination of operating and finance leases, the company’s president explained, hence the turnover of some aircraft.
Emirates is still expected to peak A380 before it begins to decline to about 90 to 100 aircraft in the middle of the next decade. In February, the company reduced its order from 162 aircraft to 123, after Airbus announced it would shut down quad-engine production in 2021.
Although Emirates began phasing out the A380, the company CEO emphasized that the aircraft will remain flying in the company’s colors for many years until at least 2035, unlike other customers who plan to take the giant aircraft out of service in the coming years due to its high cost of operation.
The UAE company also abandoned plans to install new first-class suites on the aircraft. On the other hand, Emirates will begin renovating its A380’s economy-class cabin by the end of 2019.
In addition to the Emirates other A380 have already begun to be dismantled for lack of customers like two jets that flew on Singapore Airlines.
