“We are cognizant of the challenges to sell this aeroplane, but we are still looking at ways and means to dispose of our 380 fleet,” CEO Izham Ismail said in an online press briefing on Tuesday.

“At the moment, the management is convinced that the 380 doesn’t fit the future plan.”

Malaysia Airlines becomes the latest airline to cast doubt on the Airbus A380’s retirement. Photo: Getty Images

That plan will however see the Malaysian flag-carrier and Oneworld member restart the delivery schedule for its Boeing 737 MAX jets from 2024, although Ismail added “we are also exploring the possibility of taking it earlier.”

Malaysia Airlines aims to have 83 aircraft in total by 2025, with the beleaguered carrier aiming to break even in 2023, in line with a full recovery of demand for air travel.

Malaysia Airlines was among Airbus’ final customers to sign up for the superjumbo, taking its first delivery in 2012 – the last, which arrived in  2013, was the 100th A380 produced.

The A380’s sported eight open first class suites (later rebranded as business suites) at the front of the lower deck, with 66 business class seats (in an outdated 2-2-2 layout) on the upper deck and 420 economy seats spread across both decks, with children under 12 controversially banned from the small upper-deck economy cabin.

The viability of the airline’s A380 was often called into question, and at various stages over recent years Malaysia Airlines has considered measures such as selling off the double-decker jets or spinning them out into a seperate airline which would charter the A380s to bring Muslims across south-east Asian on the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.

“The aim is to establish an air transport system and infrastructure dedicated for Hajj and Umrah for Muslims not just from these three countries but also other ASEAN countries” Ismail remarked in February 2019, adding that the new airline would be called Amal.

Less than two weeks ago, Etihad Airways CEO Tony Douglas announced the Gulf carrier would keep its ten Airbus A380s grounded “indefinitely”, admitting the superjumbos – adorned with the extravagant three-room Residence suite and nine spacious first class Apartments –  were “a wonderful product, but they are no longer commercially sustainable.”

Air France and Lufthansa have also called an end to the Airbus A380; Qatar Airways will retire five of its ten A380s, but the fate of the remaining A380s remains in limbo.

However, Qantas and British Airways both intend to bring their 12-strong A380 fleets back as demand for international travel rebounds.

“We think we will reactivate all of the A380s,” Qantas CEO Alan Joyce forecast last month, although he doesn’t expect they’ll all return to the skies until demand for international travel reaches 2019 levels “in 2024.” 

British Airways’ CEO Sean Doyle is of a similar mind, remarking in March 2021 that the A380 “is in our plans for the future rebuild of the airline – although he allowed that “exactly when we will put the A380 back into service is something that we’re not clear on.”

Emirates will keep its A380s flying until the mid-2030s. (Photo: Emirates)

As for A380 champion Emirates, airline president Sir Tim Clark believes there’s plenty of life left in those superjumbos.

“The A380, of which we have 118 at the moment and five more on delivery, will continue in the plan until the mid ’30s,” Clark predicts, at which point they’ll be fully replaced by the Boeing 777X.

By the end of this decade and the beginning of the next, Emirates’ heavy-duty fleet strategy will involve “using the A380s on the trunk routes, barreling through from east to west and north to south… with the 777X gradually slipping in to replace the A380s that eventually retire.”

Cre: Executive Traveller

Nguyen Xuan Nghia – COMM