Qatar Airways will retire 5 Airbus A380s – half of its fleet – with immediate effect, whereas a superjumbo-sized question mark stays hanging over the rest of the fleet,
Qatar Airways’ ten A380s have been grounded since March 2020, with airline CEO His Excellency Akbar Al Baker admitting in May 2020 that “they won’t return for at least a yr, and possibly never.”
Talking at a CAPA live on-line event overnight, Al Baker stated of the A380s “we’ve determined that we’ll not function them for the foreseeable future, and even once we function them we are going to only function half the numbers we’ve.”
As an alternative, Qatar’s focus will shift to its single-deck Boeing 777 flagships plus the modern and more fuel-efficient Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Whereas Al Baker couched his decision in environmental phrases – describing the A380 as “one of many worst plane on the subject of emissions that are flying at present” – there’s little doubt that the high price of flying the double-decker jet in a period when it couldn’t be full of passengers adds an economic angle.
The Qatar Airways superjumbos arrived between September 2014 and April 2018, so “beginning from the next 4 years, our first A380s will begin going to the desert, as a result of there is no point keeping these costly fuel guzzlers with little or no return on our funding.”
This timeline was behind Qatar’s determination to not improve the A380s from their previous-generation business class seat to the newest Qsuite.
However, the standout feature of the superjumbo remained the spacious and stunningly-appointed ‘Sanctuary’ business class lounge on the upper deck.
The A380 stays the only Qatar Airways plane that includes first-class, and Al Baker has repeatedly voiced his perception that demand for the first class is shrinking, based both on the premium price ticket and how the airline’s Qsuites have narrowed the gap between first and business.
However, as previously reported, the airline is developing a first-class cabin for its forthcoming Boeing 777X jets to fill a gap within the high-end journey market as soon as its Airbus A380s are retired, In flip, that first-class sub-fleet would feature on only a few premium-heavy European routes.
“We’re studying the potential for having a really exclusive first-class cabin of just 4 seats, for example,” Al Baker stated, describing it as a deliberately “very niche product” geared toward well-heeled Qatari travelers.
“We have now big demand right here in Qatar to two or three European locations” similar to London and Paris, Al Baker explains, “so we could introduce a really small first-class cabin for our local passengers who need a very unique first-class product.”
