(CNN) — The post-pandemic recovery of commercial aviation may have an early, unlikely protagonist: the A380 superjumbo.
Emirates has the world’s largest fleet of A380s.
PASCAL PAVANI/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s definitely having a comeback,” says Geoff Van Klaveren, an aviation analyst and managing director of advisory at IBA. “Operators were quite reluctant to bring it back because it’s a very costly airplane, but I think we’ve seen demand recovering faster than people expected.”
More coming back
Out of those, nine are currently flying it: British Airways, All Nippon Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Qatar, Asiana, Korean Air and China Southern Airlines. Some of these already have plans to press even more of their A380s back into service.
Singapore Airlines, for example, is currently flying 10 A380s out of its fleet of 12, but confirmed to CNN Travel that the remaining two are currently being retrofitted and will re-enter the fleet soon. Korean Air also said that it will bring back a third A380 out of its fleet of 10, to join the two already in service.
Qantas, which is operating three out of its 12 A380s on the Sydney-Singapore-London route, confirmed to CNN Travel that it aims to have a total of six back into service before the end of the year, with a plan to reinstate four more by 2024 (the remaining two are to be scrapped).
Emirates, the largest A380 operator with 123 of the aircraft, is also ramping up. “Today we operate […] more…
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