Malaysia Airlines A380
Malaysia Airlines A380

Malaysia Airlines to Retire All Their A380s

Sam Chui·
A380Aviation NewsMalaysia Airlines

As reported by Executive Traveller, Malaysia Airlines’ CEO has confirmed that the airline plans to retire their Airbus A380 fleet.

"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. At the moment, the management is convinced that the 380 doesn't fit the future plan."

Izham Ismail, Malaysia Airlines CEO

Malaysia Airlines took delivery of their first of 6 A380's in 2012, the last of which arrived in  2013 and was the 100th A380 produced. Malaysia Airlines A380 features 8 First Class Suites (later re-branded as Business Suite), 66 Business Class angle flat seats and 420 Economy Class seats, spread across both decks.

  • a woman standing next to a man in a chair in a restaurant
    Malaysia Airlines A380 First Class
  • a group of women in an airplane
    Malaysia Airlines A380 Business Class

Since the arrival of A350 into the Malaysia Airlines fleet, the smaller twin Airbus has been slowly replacing the A380 between London and Kuala Lumpur; this has left the A380 doing adhoc high demand flights to Seoul, Tokyo, Madinah and Jeddah.

airplanes at an airport
Malaysia Airlines A350 at London Heathrow

The pandemic has caused the acceleration of Airbus A380 retirements. Air France, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways and Thai Airways are all planning to retire their A380 fleets.

"There is no future for the A380. It was the wrong airplane at the wrong time. It is something that passengers love, many liked to travel on the A380. It's very quite and it's very spacious, but at the end of the day, for the operator, it's really painful to keep them in the skies. The operating costs are punishing and so are the maintenance costs, an A380 at C check is three times the cost of that of a B777 or an A350-1000."

H.E.Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways Group CEO

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

The Future of The Singapore Airlines A380
Sam Chui

Sam Chui is one of the world's most established aviation and travel blogger, content creator and published author. He enjoys anything related to aviation and travel. His fascination with airplanes stemmed from visiting Kai Tak airport as a teenager. He has spent some of the happiest times of his life in the air.

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13 Responses

  1. Hi Sam,
    As you mentioned above that Qatar is flying A380 to Paris daily but I don’t see any A380 flying from DOH To CDG as I try to book my tickets.
    Can you please reconfirm that?
    Thanks.

    Reply

  2. The first newly Emirates A380 with Premium Economy seat is flying from DXB to CDG on 08:20 to 00:15. And the second one just arrived this week from Airbus, I should inform you where it will be flying.

    Reply

  3. The A380 was probably the worst timed airliner in aviation history thanks to Airbus’s misreading the tea leaves but they are compensating in good order with the A321XLR. The 747 was brilliantly timed and made the most of it with half a century of sterling service. The next brilliant plane should be a 757 replacement with better economics that can fly 7500 miles non-stop with 250 pax.

    Reply

    1. Couldn’t agree with you more. I would be very interested to know what Boeing is doing about a 757 replacement. The B737MAX10 doesn’t have the kind of range a 757 has. All I ready about the 757 is what a great plane it is and how Boeing needs to reinvent it. There are over 650 still in service, on a 30 year old aircraft. However, Boeing needs to do something as what I am seeing from Airbus with their “NEO” class planes could already be the answer.

  4. I don’t understand on what basis Malaysian Airlines bought the A-380. Surely, if others are using it then they must be having enough passengers to operate. Singapore Airlines, Emirates, BA are in a position to do this. Malaysia Airlines did not have the numbers, thus the low profitability and consequently high operating cost. Then again why so many aircrafts? Just half of that would have been sufficient. I could be wrong.

    Reply

  5. First of all malaysian airlines customer service is the worst in have ever encountered,
    1. they will cancel the flight without any alternative suggestion.
    2. It’s understandable when elicit schedule is full of uncertainty but least the airlines has to offer is a refundable without customer having to put requests.
    3. If I ever have a choice malaysian airlines is not in the list and I’d rather walk to my destination.
    4. Our neighbor thai airways made the same cancelation but offered alternative travel dates without any hassle and all it took was just an email.

    Shame on you Malaysian airlines I really hope you don’t ever fly again.

    Reply

  6. Malaysia Airlines use to be the one of the best airline in the world. Its’ sad to hear the retirement of the A380.
    I am just wondering when the airline is going to rebounce to its’ glorious day. The best pilots and the technical crew almost disappeared to nowhere.
    Hope the top management will able to turn around the clock and bring back its’ original slogan ” Going Beyond Expectations”

    Reply

  7. Emirates was the only airline to truly make real use and profit out of the A380, and basically kept the whole program on life-support for years as it ultimately ordered double the number of A380s as all the other airlines that bought it it combined. The A380’s only selling point was its size, but size only matters in the air freight business now, and its lower deck cockpit made it impractical for freighter use compared to the upper deck cockpit 747 or a single deck 777 or A330. The main selling point for the passenger 747 throughout most of its history was its range and twin engine aircraft being hamstrung by short ETOPS limits. Once the ETOPS limits started growing longer with the 767, A330, and 777, the 747’s main selling point for passenger airlines was gone. The death-knell for the 747 was the 777-300ER in 2004 that could carry a 747 number of passengers a similar distance as the 747, but with two engines instead of four. By the time the A380 entered service in 2007, its and the 747’s days were already numbered by the rise of long ETOPS limits and mega twin jets.

    Reply

  8. What’s the use of retiring only the A380. Malaysian Airlines itself needs to get retired, the way it’s functioning.
    Better they can sell it to the efficient Emirates for half price, where the behemoth is being used immensely.

    Reply

  9. So who is left with the A380?

    Off the top of my head, it’s Emirates mostly. Singapore, Korean, China Southern, British, Qantas seem to be my count though some other airlines haven’t formally ditched the plane yet, like Qatar and Lufthansa.

    Reply

  10. I hate to see the jumbo jets with 4 engines retired, but they are hard on the bottom line. The 747, queen of the skies, has had its day with over 50 years of service. Many are still carrying cargo and a very few are still in passenger service. The A380, however, was a case of too big, too late. It is a wonderful aircraft; maybe the most incredible aircraft ever built, the time for the jumbo 4 engine jets is past now. Airbus would have done better with an improved version of the A340 if it had wanted a 4 engine craft to compete with the B747. I would love to fly on a A380 one day, possibly. This is the age of the B787-8 and B787-9; A350-900 and A350-1000; the A330 NEO’s, A220’s, B777X if it ever arrives, and the B737Max. In 10 years that’ll be it; it is where the airline industry is headed.

    Reply

  11. Recently I commented on a article about the new Emirates business class. I was wondering where the new business class will fly to. Me and my friend wants to go on it but don’t know where it flys. Please can u tell me

    Reply

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