China’s borders reopening has come a little late for the biggest passenger airliner ever made. Scrap? Or spare parts? What fate awaits the last of the Super Jumbos to be flown by a Chinese airline? Today, it seems now impossible for the mighty Airbus 380 to ever return.
Aviation enthusiasts from in and around Guangzhou gathered near the city’s Baiyun Airport runway on 21 December, to witness the departure of the last two China Southern Airlines’ A380 aircraft to retire. They were there to witness the historic moment whereby even the most populous nation on Earth can longer find a use for the Super Jumbo.
The two aircraft flew from Guangzhou to the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, USA, where the remains of approximately 1,000 commercial aircraft are stored in the facility’s so-called “boneyard”.
China Southern Airlines was one of the first 14 A380 users in the world, purchasing five A380s, numbered B-6136 to B-6140. In October 2011, the first of these was delivered, with its maiden flight being from Guangzhou to Beijing on 17 October.
Ticket sales were very hot. Flying between China and North America, Europe and Australia, China Southern’s A380s were also heavily employed on the route between Guangzhou and Beijing. But it was not to last.
Beijing’s Daxing Airport was put into operation in September 2019, and China Southern Airlines chose to make it the new base for A380 flights. However, the Airport being far from the city centre and metro transfers expensive resulted in passengers choosing other options. It also forced China Southern’s hand in realising a sharp drop in ticket prices on the route that could only produce two return flights per day. The A380 was losing its usefulness.
Therefore, rumours began spreading at the end of 2019 that China Southern may abandon the A380. We all know what happened next.
The pandemic caused enormous damage to the global civil aviation industry, particularly on the kind of long-haul flights for which the A380 is most suited. Nevertheless, China Southern Airlines insisted on using the A380 during the pandemic and at one point was the only airline in the world to be doing so.
Then, with the pandemic overseas under control, China Southern could only stand by and watch as airlines such as Emirates, Singapore and Lufthansa quickly resumed their A380 operations.
Today, eight operators continue to fly the A380; ANA, British Airways, Emirates, Korean Airlines/Asiana, Lufthansa, Qantas, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines. Together with China Southern; Air France, Malaysia Airlines, and Thai Airways International have all abandoned the aircraft type.
According to industry insider, Ch-Aviation.com, there are at present 127 Airbus 380-800s flying scheduled passenger operations, while another 112 are in various states of storage. A total of 15 have been scrapped.
So the fate of the remaining A340s belonging to China Southern hangs in the balance. They could well be dismantled for spare parts for A380s still in service, but given their age and the quantity of other younger planes available for such, they may well end up on the scrap heap sooner than expected.
