Earlier today, an Air France Airbus A380, registered as F-HPJB, flew from Paris to Malta International Airport (MLA) after arriving from Johannesburg. The flight number was AF370V.
This flight begins the retirement of 10 Air France Airbus A380s, the schedule is to retire all of them before 2022.
After the arrival, the aircraft will be fully repainted white at Aviation Cosmetics Malta; then it will go back to its lessor, Dr. Peters Group.
F-HPJB joined Air France in February 2010, became the second Airbus A380 in the airline’ s fleet.
Air France is the second airline to begin retiring Airbus A380s. The first was Singapore Airlines, which has already retired 5. The aircraft previously registered as 9V-SKB has already been dismantled, becoming the first dismantled A380 in the world.
From an Air France press release published earlier:
“The current competitive environment limits the markets in which the A380 can profitably operate.”
Unlike many other airlines, such as Lufthansa, Qantas, China Southern and Emirates, Airbus A380s are not profitable for Air France. Using their hub advantage Emirates plays well with the largest A380 fleet, making a 282% increase in net profit earlier this year.
Very interesting that the Airbus conglomerate couldn’t succeed with the A380 and capture the historically home market of Air France…
Flew an AF 380 from cdg to lax last week In business class and was not impressed. Cabin was hot, seats very uncomfortable . The 777 was better but I will probably choose another airline next time.
Air France is a product of French society. If you will something not to succeed it will manifest itself and reward you with what you wish. Clark from Emirates was bang on AF’s problems with the type. Just look at its business class. A crummy non competitive hard product albeit with good food. AF is in the SkyTeam Alliance and flies to some of the highest income earning zip codes in the US. Marketing the product properly should’ve provided AF with ample revenue on these routes. High income earners have or will travel multiple times to Europe especially Paris during their lifetimes. For them it’s all about the exclusivity and experience of the travel. It’s like buying a Louis Vuitton purse from an exclusive boutique vs buying a purse from JC Penny’s. Same level of functionality but that isn’t the point. The problem with AF’s lack of thinking on this is that the main concern was seat mile costs, which isn’t a bad thing, but you don’t use that as the determining metric on potentially your most revenue generating product. AF needs to rethink this otherwise they become just another nondescript airline.
Don’t they know before they buy 830’s what they want ? That’s why they’re called “ Air Chance “.