Vaccine arrives late to avoid forced retirement from large passenger aircraft
As the global vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is about to begin, the pandemic has already wreaked havoc in the aviation world and has taken out the largest passenger planes of all airlines.
The main casualties are airborne mastodons, those with the capacity to carry 550 or more passengers on a single flight between different continents. The aircraft most affected by the tremendous crisis are the veteran and famous American four-engine Boeing 747 Jumbo and its most direct competitor, the elegant European model Airbus A380, known as the Superjumbo.
The length of two large whales, the height of seven giraffes and a double aisle inside, the debacle of both aircraft models is due to the global collapse of the very long haul travel market, a segment of the air transport industry where the two aircraft were the undisputed kings of the skies.
The result of the plummeting demand for intercontinental travel, combined with the high operating costs of these giant aircraft, has meant that the few very long-range aircraft that take off have half or less of their seats empty, making neither model profitable.
Serious restrictions on freedom of movement almost everywhere in the world, fear of contagion on the plane and the quarantine that many nations apply to foreigners arriving on their territory have caused most Boeing 747 Jumbo and Airbus A380s to remain on the ground. But this has not been enough, and airline managers have decided to bring forward their withdrawal from service, provide early retirement and divest themselves of the vast majority of both models.
With the trend focusing on smaller, cheaper and more efficient aircraft in the 300-seat environment, such as the Airbus A350XWB and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the first airline to grant a forced retirement to its A380 fleet has been Air France. The French airline has had to park its ten Superjumbo aircraft one by one, a process that began in February this year and will be completed by the end of 2022. The German company Lufthansa has also taken the same measure and is going to eliminate all its A380s.
The largest number of A380s is held by Emirates, the Emirate's main national airline, which operates long routes to Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. It has a fleet of no less than 115 aircraft of the aforementioned model and has yet to incorporate another eight. Although some routes are maintained with the large aircraft, almost all are on the ground due to the slow recovery in demand.
In the case of Etihad Airways, the second national airline of the Emirates, its ten or so A380s are currently on hold, hoping that in one or two years' time the market will once again require their services. The same applies to Qatar Airways, which has the same number of aircraft. The second largest airline of the European giant is Singapore Airlines, which has decided to permanently withdraw seven of its 19 A380s until conditions improve.
Australia's Qantas is different and will keep its dozen A380s for the time being. The company needs them to connect the vast country with the rest of the planet. The consulting firm Cirium confirmed that, at the beginning of December, the total number of A380s parked on the ground amounted to no less than 219 aircraft, while only 22 aircraft continued to fly, which is around 90 percent of the aircraft banished from their bases of operations.
From the point of view of demand for new aircraft, the A380 was already having serious sales problems before the crisis caused by the pandemic. The accounts did not add up for Airbus, which announced in February 2019 that it would cease production as of 2021, a very hard blow to the European aeronautics industry, including Spain.
The case of the Boeing 747 is similar to that of the A380, but much less tragic. While the first A380 entered service in October 2007, its total production is less than half of the planned 700 aircraft and there are still eight in various stages of completion, the Jumbo began commercial flights in 1968, it has accumulated five decades of service, more than 1,500 units have already been manufactured, 15 are still in production and Boeing will definitively close its production line in 2022.
An example of the situation of the 747 is the British Airways company, which in the summer announced the withdrawal of its 31 Boeing 747s, an operation planned for 2024 and which it has been forced to bring forward. In August, Germany's Lufthansa grounded five Boeing 747s, Virgin Atlantic and KLM also disposed of their 747s and the same decision has been taken by Australia's Qantas airline, which has already retired its last six Jumbo jets.
The increase in the number of idle aircraft has been such that Tarmac Aerosave, a French company involved in the storage, warehousing, maintenance and recycling of aircraft, has seen its activity increase exponentially. Founded in 2007 by the European corporation Airbus and the French multinationals Safran and Suez, the company has had to expand its parking aprons at Spain's Teruel airport, which has become Europe's second largest industrial airport.
Specialised in parking large aircraft, the space available in Teruel is completely crowded and already houses around 130 aircraft. The strong demand for space has advised its director, Alejandro Ibrahim, to undertake continuous extensions to almost triple its useful surface area and to be able to park just over 350 large aircraft simultaneously.
The consequences of the COVID-19 have also affected the four-engine Airbus A340 and the more modern and large twin-engine Boeing 777, a model from which the US company Delta Air Lines will withdraw its entire fleet before the end of 2020. Teruel is home to all the above-mentioned large models of Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France, SAS and other airlines, which will remain there until demand rises or they are leased by regional airlines. A third option is for them to be scrapped in order to market their main components, an alternative which in some cases is more costly than keeping them in the ground.