Is COVID-19 The End Of The Line For The 747 & A380

Even before COVID-19, the Boeing 747 and the Airbus A380 were clearly on their way out. With the rise of twin-engine long-haul jets came the demise of the tri-jet and the quad-jet, largely due to their much smaller operating costs. However, with COVID-19, most airlines are in extremely fragile financial situations, leading airlines downsize in order to preserve cash and in expectancy of a smaller aviation sector going forward; ergo, airlines have reduced fleet sizes, starting with older and less fuel efficient aircraft. Consequently, the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 have been among the hardest hit in the pandemic, with airlines speeding up retirement schedules for both aircraft, along with many other older aircraft models. So is this really the end of the line for the 747 and the A380? I would probably say yes, though for different reasons.

A Brief History Of the 747

The Boeing 747 is perhaps the most iconic aircraft in aviation and was the first ever wide-body jet. It debuted in 1970 with Pan Am, the first version being the 747-100. It opened up hundreds of long-haul routes for airlines and was revolutionary in size and paving way for decades of wide-body aircraft. It also helped connect the world and was the aircraft which allowed long-haul air travel en-mass to begin. Subsequently, there have been many different versions of the 747, the most popular ones being the 747-200 and the 747-400.

There have been many different variants of the 747 throughout the years, including the long-range and study 747SP, to the highly unpopular 747-300, which was actually the same size as the 747-400. Throughout the decades (it’s been around for over 50 years now!), the 747 was immensely popular with airlines and was the first true long-haul aircraft, with range greater than any previous aircraft.

However, the decline of the 747 started arguably during the rise of ETOPS in the 90s, which allows twin-engine aircraft to operate long distances overseas. The ability for twin-engine aircraft to operate over oceans limited the need for aircraft with three or four engines, as two engines are much cheaper to operate than three or four engines.

Most recently, the Boeing 747-8 debuted in 2011, being larger than the previous generation 747-400 and having newer technology; although only three airlines operate it, making it quite unpopular among airlines, due to its popularity among cargo airlines (it still is in production now) and relatively low costs to develop (it shares a lot of tech with the 787), it was not a huge fiscal failure for Boeing, unlike the A380. The 747-8 never really became popular with airlines due to its capacity (same issue as the A380) and its four engines, which are more expensive to operate than aircraft which have two engines.

However, it has become quite popular with cargo airlines such as Cargolux, UPS, and Atlas Air, which has made the aircraft somewhat of a success for Boeing. Up until recently, the Boeing 747-400 had been widely operated by dozens of airlines, being one of the most popular wide-body aircraft ever made, although most airlines fairly recently have retired their 747-400s (due to higher costs and old age), making the aircraft quite scare among airlines. Other variants of the 747 (other than the -400 and -8) haven’t been in widespread commercial service for decades.

A History Of The A380 & Why It Failed

Meanwhile, the Airbus A380 only debuted in 2007 with Singapore Airlines and is quite recognizable as the largest commercial aircraft in the sky, with two full length decks. With the A380, Airbus took a huge–and ultimately wrong–bet, in which they depicted a world in which air travel became more and more congested (to the point in which it would cause serious problems), indicating that a larger jet would help alleviate congestion.

Airbus, in contrast to many, ultimately correct analysts at the time (when the A380 was imagined in the 90s), imagined that passengers would travel between only the biggest cities with the largest airports with the A380 (which they also thought were becoming too congested with smaller aircraft on such routes, such as the 767 or DC-10), which would bring down fares due to its enormous capacity, and then would connect at that airport to smaller cities–something that’s called the hub-and-spoke model.

Ultimately, they thought that people would be willing to connect at larger airports it that meant lower fares, which they (wrongly) predicted the A380 would bring, as opposed to a point-to-point model, in which passengers fly nonstop to their destination on (often) smaller jets where prices would be somewhat more expensive, which overall turned out to be a more popular business than they thought.

However, their plan did not work out so well. Airport congestion became less of a problem than they imagined, and airlines simply did (and of course still do) not require a plane that large. Even when demand is great enough, airlines simply prefer to operate two flights on a smaller aircraft, such as the 787, in comparison to operating one flight on an A380 a day which allowed for much less flexibility from the consumer’s perspective, especially as operating two 787s (very) roughly costs about the same and carries about the same amount of passengers as one A380 does. Add in the fact that many airlines relied less on hub-to-hub service and more on point-to-point service, which entirely contradicts the purpose of the A380, and the A380 was doomed for failure.

Airlines for the most part disagreed with Airbus’ vision for the future of aviation and the goal of the A380. This is evident by that no airline, besides one, ordered a significant fleet of A380s, with the vast majority of airlines operating only between 5 and 15 of them, which is no where near the amount needed to make a return on them–many in fact ordered the A380 largely for the purpose of national pride without a solid plan to make a return on the aircraft.

Emirates, however, operates nearly 115 on them, making them by far the largest operator of the A380. They have been able to successfully operate it largely because of their business model, which relies almost solely on Dubai being a fortress hub for connecting people between the east and the west. Emirates more or less followed Airbus’ vision for the A380.

With flights to basically every major city in the entire world and its extremely convenient location for connections, Emirates has built up the scale of connections at a single airport for the A380 to work for them–keep in mind that they also have the largest fleet of 777s, which can help feed into Dubai from smaller cities. And add the fact that Emirates essentially built their entire brand on the A380 and that it’s more economical to fly a larger fleet of the A380 than a smaller fleet (per aircraft), and Emirates actually turned it into a success.

But no other airlines actually had that strategy to build a hub and a brand around the A380–Emirates’ success is partly due to their spectacular geography for a hub in Dubai and near unlimited funding. No other airline has been anywhere near as successful as Emirates in building a global hub, which has allowed them to profitably operate the A380. When looking at most other airlines which operate the A380, it simply didn’t make as much sense for them.

Take Air France, for example–instead of operating one flight on the A380 a day transatlantically to, say, Washington, they would much preferably offer two flights a day on an A350 or 777, which would offer greater convenience to passengers, many of which whom are traveling point-to-point.

It’s the same story with most other A380 operators, including Lufthansa, Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines, China Southern Airlines, or British Airways. Additionally, the lack of success which Qatar Airways and Etihad have had with the A380, in comparison to similarly located Emirates, can be largely attributed to their smaller hubs and their significantly smaller fleet–both, I believe, only operate 10 A380s each. Another reason why the A380 may have failed may have been its timing–it was introduced in 2008, which may have prevented some airlines from ordering the A380.

So the A380 was basically set up to fail and never became popular for a variety of factors. Because of its high operating costs and low profit margins, airlines actually started retiring or planning on retiring their A380s before the pandemic–starting with Singapore Airlines, which (I believe) one or two years ago retired their first A380. The aircraft itself is supposed to end production in 2021, with the last couple of planes going to Emirates–a sign that the end of the A380 is close.

Airlines Have Already Been Retiring The 747 & A380, And COVID Has Sped Up Retirements

Airlines have been scaling up their retirements of the 747-400 recently (which debuted in the late -80s), due to their older age and inefficiency (with four engines). United and Delta, the last two airlines to operate the 747, retired their last 747s in late 2017, which was quite a sad event. Over the past 10 years, many more airlines have retired their 747-400s, including EVA Air, Air France, ANA, El Al, Singapore Airlines, Philippine Airlines, among many others. However, COVID-19 has forced airlines to speed up aircraft retirements, with many airlines having fully retired the 747 during the pandemic, in order to cut costs and simply their fleet, in preparation for a smaller aviation market.

Airlines which have retired their 747s during the pandemic (alone) include KLM, Virgin Atlantic, Corsair, and very recently, Qantas (which is quite sad for me, as it was the first airline that I flew the 747 on, which actually happed by accident, though that’s a story for another day). British Airways has recently (and tragically) announced their retirement of all of their 747-400s, which is quite sad, given that they were previously the largest operator of the type. Lufthansa has also retired part of their 747-400 fleet during the pandemic.

With many commercial operators of the 747-400 operating only a few aircraft (such as Korean Air, Air China, or Asiana), at the rate that retirements are happening, I would say that it (sadly) might be possible that after the pandemic, there may be less than five commercial operators of the 747-400–there already are already only 12 operators of the 747 as of today.

Meanwhile, the 747-8 doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, as its three commercial operators–Lufthansa, Air China, and Korean Air–haven’t stated that they are planning on retiring them any time soon. The 747-8 is also much younger than the 747-400 and is five years younger than the A380, making it less likely that they will be retired anytime soon. However, it never really became popular (there are only 36 in commercial service), so going forward, the 747 (both the -400 and -8 variants) will really only be operated by cargo carriers large-scale, a fate which many other aircraft, such as the MD-11 or A300, have had over the past decade. So I think going forward, we won’t see many 747-400s in the sky operating for commercial airlines, though the limited 747-8s should stay in operation for a number of years and cargo 747s will remain widespread.

While I wouldn’t call the 747 and its retirement a tragedy, per-se (due to its long-term success), I would probably call the A380 that. The A380 was going to be the plane that revolutionized air travel, but it did just the opposite, as airlines going forward rely much more on smaller aircraft (such as the 787 or A350) on long-haul routes than larger ones, such as the A380, more so than ever before. Four-engined aircraft had been inefficient before the pandemic and had already provided too much capacity, but post-COVID–there simply isn’t enough demand to make the A380 work economically. Subsequently, airlines have started to preemptively already retire or speed up retirement schedules for their A380s, as it simply doesn’t make sense for many airlines to operate them going forward.

Let’s look at what airlines have in store for their A380s, and it isn’t great:

• Air France has already retired all of their 10 A380s during the pandemic, planned for retirement in 2022.
• Lufthansa will retire about half of their A380 fleet, and, if the aircraft does return, which may or may not occur, it will only happen in 2022, only at Munich Airport (so not in Frankfurt).
• Qantas, if they fly them at all, won’t fly their A380s for the next few years, which is a shame, as they just retrofitted them.
• Qatar Airways won’t fly their A380s for at least a year, if ever again, which is also a shame, as it’s their only aircraft with a true first class product.
• Thai Airways is filing for bankruptcy protection and is in a very fragile financial state; in addition to the A380 being a money loser for them for years, I think it’s unlikely that it will ever return.

• Etihad recently pulled all first class award availability until the end of the year, so it’s likely that they won’t fly for a while, if ever, which would be awful for Etihad, as it was their flagship aircraft, being the only plane with the Etihad Residence and their First Class Apartments.
• Singapore Airlines retired their first A380 a few years back, although they did receive their last ones only a couple of years ago, which had new cabins and replaced their earliest A380s. It seems like they’re going to keep all of their aircraft for about 10 years and them retire them; it also wouldn’t make any sense to retire all of their A380s any time soon, as they recently introduced a new first class product on them.
• Emirates recently retired their first A380 a few weeks ago; they will receive their final A380 in 2021, so I think that it’s likely that they will operate the A380 through the end of the 2020s and likely well into the 2030s, as they planned to do pre-pandemic. So the Emirates A380 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, though it won’t be around for ever.
• Asiana, operating only 6 A380s, has been in poor financial shape for a while now, so it’s quite possible that they’ll retire them sooner rather than later.
• British Airways operates 12 of them and has been pretty quite about their plans for the A380–I would imagine that they’ll stay in their fleet for a few more years, though who knows.
• No word on Korean Air’s plans for their A380s, though they do have their previous generation cabins, so they may not have an incentive to keep them in their fleet (this is all speculation though).
• Malaysia Airlines has been mostly operating their A380s for Hajj services after they received their A350s, which seems to have been working out (somewhat) ok for them.
• China Southern Airlines was the only airline operating the A380 during the pandemic, so I would presume that they will be safe from retirement for a while.
• All Nippon Airways only received their A380s starting last year and only operates them to Hawaii, so I doubt that they will retire them anytime soon.

So, yeah, it’s not looking great for the future of the A380. Post-pandemic, I would only say that it’s 100% that two airlines will operate it, which are Emirates and ANA. Does that mean that I think only two airlines will operate it? No–to the contrary, I predict that a good chunk of the airlines will operate the A380 after the pandemic, though I would be shocked if Air France were to be the only airline to completely retire their A380 fleet during the pandemic.

The A380 was already too big pre-pandemic for airlines to operate, making it a big money loser for both airlines and Airbus (for Airbus largely because the number of orders and deliveries was vastly below what they expected). With the aviation industry and airlines shrinking to survive, it simply isn’t practical for airlines to fly the A380 anymore, meaning that airlines have and will retire them, despite their relatively young age, showing just how unprofitable they are.

The A380 was already on its way out prior to the pandemic, but with COVID-19, I just can’t see a scenario where airlines won’t retire them en-mass. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a market for used A380s–the only used A380 in use is one for Hi-Fly, a short-term wet leasing company which operates an ex-SIA A380–it wasn’t leased frequently pre-pandemic and with more than enough aircraft post-pandemic, I just can’t see how it, along with other used A380s, will be necessary.

So is this the end of the A380? In short, yes and no. The A380 will almost certainly be around for the rest of this decade and likely into the 2030s, though it’s also certain that the number of A380s in operation will be much lower going forward. Because of COVID-19, it’s also certain that there will be less A380s in the skies in the short-term in contrast to if the pandemic had not happened (just look at Air France!). The economics of the A380 were flawed from the beginning–and COVID-19 seems to have been the final blow for the A380.

It’s also worth noting that COVID-19 has also likely been the end of the A340. For those who don’t know, the A340 was introduced along with the A330 in the 1990s and is roughly the same size, though it has four engines, which, before airlines were comfortable operating twin-engined aircraft across oceans, made it popular among airlines flying long-haul. The A340 was produced up until 2011, though airlines recently have been retiring them, due to their fuel inefficiency in contrast to twin-engined aircraft.

Its largest operator, Lufthansa, is in the midst of retiring many of their A340s, and it’s questionable whether they will fly them at all post-pandemic. Meanwhile, South African Airways, whose future is still questionable, which used to operate one of the largest A340 fleets, has sadly completely retiring their A340s, while SAS has also retired half of their former 8 count fleet of A340s and Iberia will retire their A340-600s by the end of 2020.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for quad-jets, including the iconic 747 and A380. For a variety of reasons, primarily due to their large size and fuel inefficiency, the 747 and A380 (and the A340, for anyone who cares) had been on their way out, even prior to the pandemic. However, with a shrinking aviation market which is likely to take years to recover, there simply isn’t much of a way in which airlines will be able to profitably operate 747s and A380s for a long while, making retirements more widespread. This is probably saddest for the A380, given that it only has been in commercial service for (not even) 13 years, making the aircraft which was supposed to transform aviation into one of the shortest lived commercial jets.