Emirates has made major changes to its A380 network, it pulls the superjumbo from eight cities for the rest of 2022 and replaces them with 777-300ERs.
The removal of Emirates’ A380s was confirmed in its latest schedule update. It shows the fragility of demand, and how much farther there is to go until normality returns.
It also indicates much optimism over the recovery, although Brisbane changed to the double-decker quadjet on March 1st, soon after Australia’s border reopened.
It comes as the Gulf carrier makes multiple other changes to its A380 network, mainly involving frequency cuts, postponements, and delays to their return, to be covered in a separate article.
Eight routes won’t see Emirates’ A380s
Those no longer seeing Emirates’ A380s are shown below, with further changes extremely likely. There’s a certain predictability about most of the eight, especially hard-hit Asia, whose recovery is slow. It’s mainly the case for China, which seems to want a zero-COVID situation.
- Beijing (PEK): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Route suspended for the year
- Birmingham (BHX): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 2x daily 777-300ER
- Copenhagen (CPH): no A380 is now scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from October 30th. Will remain 1x daily 777-300ER
- Hong Kong (HKG): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to return on October 30th on the non-stop. Now 1x daily via
- Bangkok by B777-300ER; from October 30th, also 1x daily 777-300ER non-stop
- Nice (NCE): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 1x daily 777-300ER
- Prague (PRG): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from October 30th. Will remain 1x daily 777-300ER
- Shanghai (PVG): no A380 is scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from July 1st. Route suspended for the year
- Tokyo (NRT): no A380 is scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 1x daily 777-300ER
Birmingham, Copenhagen, Prague
Three of the European routes have lower premium demand generally and probably more than ever now. However, removing the A380 is less because of that and more because of lower overall demand.
The A380s serving Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Prague were all scheduled to receive the two-class, 615-seat A380 variant, which doesn’t have first class. They have 557 economy seats (up from a minimum of 338) and 58 business seats.
It means the three European routes can’t currently sustain the higher premium offering of lower-density A380s, nor the higher volume of seats on the higher-capacity, two-class aircraft.
Shifting these three European routes to 777-300ERs as the recovery continues removes about 42% of seats for sale per departure or around 260 seats. It also means business class reduces by over a quarter. OAG & simpleflying.com
