Renowned British aviation weekly Flight International has opined, in its latest edition, that the Airbus A380 Superjumbo airliner is already “heading for the scrapyard”, even though it entered service only a little more than ten years ago. This was despite its popularity with passengers, for whom it provided an “unrivalled” experience.

Air France has already announced (on May 20) that it was retiring its A380 fleet with immediate effect (instead of, as originally planned, in 2022). It had grounded its Superjumbos on March 16 as a result of the collapse in international air travel caused by the Covid-19 pandemic (it had already announced that it would replace its A380s with latest-generation Airbus A350-900 airliners).

“[I]t is unlikely many other A380 fleets will be restored to their pre-coronavirus levels when the crisis is full over,” observed the weekly. “This current outlook for the world’s biggest airliner is very different to the one imagined when Airbus launched the A380 in 2000.”

The 550-seat A380 was intended to replace the original Jumbo jet, the Boeing 747. Benchmarked against the 747, the A380 delivered significant advantages in terms of both operating costs and passenger experience. Airbus expected it to replicate the great success of its Boeing predecessor.

“The arguments about the A380’s size, economics and true market potential have raged for years,” noted Flight International. “On trunk routes where demand could fill the aircraft, the A380 worked well. But if the stars didn’t align perfectly, the aircraft could be problematic and this tempered demand for customers like British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific who had previously ordered 747s in droves.”

The A380 also suffered from two major external ‘shocks’ during its developmental years. In 2001, there were the ‘9/11’ terrorist attacks (using hijacked civil airliners) on the US. And in 2008 came the ‘Great Recession’ global financial crisis. Both events changed how airlines rated the importance of capacity flexibility.

“The sheer size and logistical problems that the A380 potentially posed scared some airlines off,” opined the weekly. “The resulting lack of fleet scale at the majority of A380 operators hampered the type’s ability to deliver the operational economics and flexibility needed to make aircraft work efficiently.”

And then there was the unexpected speed of development of civil turbofan engines. This had allowed the development of very large, very fuel efficient, engines that made large twin-engine airliners, such as the Boeing 777-300ER, possible. And these were delivering lower operating costs than the A380 could.