Air France to reduce Airbus A380 fleet

Benjamin Smith, the Canadian CEO of Air France has confirmed he will maintain Airbus A380s in Air France’s fleet. From 2020, the giant aircraft will be renovated, but their number will progressively be decreased from 10 to 5, Bruno Trévidic writes in French financial daily Les Échos. 

Benjamin Smith will not be the gravedigger of the A380. After several weeks of suspense, the new boss has decided to keep several of them in the fleet. However, the installation of the new “Best” cabin interior will not begin until the autumn of 2020. By then, the number of A380s with Air France colours should start to decrease.

Of the ten A380s currently in service, five are leased. Air France intends to return two of them to the lessor, as their contracts expire at the end of 2019. Les Échos knows that Air France will only keep, in the long term, the five A380s they own in full.

High operating costs

Although the A380 remains the preferred flagship carrier for the general public, its operating costs are simply too high: the A380 consumes much more kerosene than a Boeing 777, hence the latter remains Air France’s long-haul reference aircraft. In 2017, Air France already decided to replace the two last Airbus A380s on order by three Airbus A350s.

Operating issues

Next to these high costs, Air France faces many operational problems. If the airline has to cancel one flight, a large number of passengers is involved with sometimes problematic consequences. Last Summer, around 20 A380 flights were cancelled after technical issues. In Winter 2017, one of the four engines exploded on an A380-flight en route to Los Angeles.

Reduced customer satisfaction rate

Cost to renovate one A380: €45,000,000

For the five aircraft that will remain in Air France’s fleet, the total renovation costs will amount to €225 million, a significant cost that seems to have made Benjamin Smith hesitate. During a meeting with Air France pilots, the Air France-KLM CEO questioned the merits of such an investment.

As the value of a second-hand A380 is almost zero, and A380s on the second-hand market do not find any takers, Air France will not let go of the A380 yet, a source close to the matter said. “Even if the operating costs are not optimal, the A380 sector is profitable and represents a significant capacity that would be difficult to do without.”