Qatar Airways, the flag carrier of the State of Qatar, known for its award winning in-flight service, announced on the 14th of January 2021 that only half of its fleet of ten Airbus A380-800 aircraft would be returning to the skies in the airline’s colours in the post-covid era. This makes Qatar the first airline to make changes to its A380 fleet in the year 2021, and also hopefully the last. This adds yet another blow to the Airbus A380-800 which has suffered from chronic groundings during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past twelve months. This includes big airline brands such as the likes of Air France, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines announcing the full scale retirement or slimming down of their A380 fleets.
Pre-pandemic, Qatar Airways operated a fleet of ten Airbus A380-800 aircraft configured in a 517-seat, three-class configuration. The A380 fleet was unique for Qatar Airways, being the only aircraft type operated by the carrier featuring a first-class cabin. Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic brought global air travel to a near-standstill, the whole Qatar Airways A380 fleet has remained parked at the old Doha International Airport (DIA/OTBD) since that time, now over ten months ago.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker first made the announcement at a CAPA (Centre for Aviation) online conference, in which he stated his decision, “not to operate them (the A380’s) for the foreseeable future and even when we do operate them, we will only operate half the numbers we currently have.” Al Baker also appeared to justify the decision to halve the A380 as better for the environment by stating “the A380 is without a doubt the worst aircraft flying today when it comes to emissions”, going on to say that the aircraft has high operating costs and is hard to fill due to its high seating capacity.
Akbar Al Baker has long believed the A380 aircraft is an aircraft for the airline’s past and not the future, even before the onset of COVID-19 across the world. As early as 2019, the CEO of Qatar Airways was announcing his intention to retire the A380 fleet by its “tenth birthday in 2024”. Al Baker also previously stated the A380 is a “gas guzzler” compared to the more modern types in the airlines fleet and had concerns Qatar Airways would not get a return of investment from the aircraft. These statements were followed by the airline’s decision not to upgrade the aircraft with Qatar’s revolutionary Q-Suite business class product.
With the A380 fleet now put on the back-burner, the ultimate plan for the airline is to replace the superjumbo’s with the Boeing 777-9X aircraft which are planned to be delivered from 2023 onwards. Al Baker has stated that it is his intention to only fit a select-few 777X aircraft with a small first-class cabin, going on to say that “the demand for first class is now limited to just a couple of European destinations”. This proves the theory that the Qatar Airways first-class product would be retired with the A380 untrue.
For the time being, however, it remains unclear if the Airbus A380 will ever actually return to service in the Qatar Airways fleet with Akbar Al Baker admitting in May 2020, “the Airbus A380 fleet will not return to service for at least another year, maybe never.”
