Air France announced this week that they would be retiring their Airbus A380s by 2022. In their 31st June earnings call, CEO Benjamin Smith laid out their options for A380 replacement. As predicted, these included the A350-900 and the 787-9 Dreamliner, but he also noted an interest in the smaller A330neo as a potential replacement.
It’s all change at Air France, as the carrier begins a massive fleet renewal process. Just this week, the airline has announced a huge order for the A220 as a short-haul replacement aircraft, as well as the swift retirement of their A380s by 2022. But what will Air France use as the replacement for the A380?
We previously speculated that the Airbus A350-900 or Boeing 787-9 could be worthy contenders. However, in the past couple of days, it has come to light that there’s a third option on the table – the Airbus A330neo.
What are the options?
When it comes to replacing the A380, the options for twin-engine, widebody, long-haul aircraft are fairly broad. However, when it comes to the strategy at Air France, it’s a clear three-horse race. Speaking at the carrier’s recent earnings call, CEO Benjamin Smith said,
“There are 3 aircraft that we're looking at, and I think they've already been public about that or some people have written about it and I'll just clarify, we are looking at additional 787-9s, we are looking at the A330-900neos, and we are looking at the A350-900s.”
The airline is phasing out its 10 A380s in a ‘progressive’ manner, with an end date of 2022 for the final aircraft to leave the fleet. However, it doesn’t sound like they’re replacing capacity seat for seat. For a start, all these aircraft under consideration for replacement are smaller in capacity than the A380, and it seems Air France doesn’t actually want that many. In the earnings call, Smith noted,
“I think 9 aircraft will be the maximum that we would order to replace the A380s.”
Still, an order for nine aircraft would be pretty big news at both Boeing and Airbus, so which will they go with?
The Airbus options
Air France is already set to receive its first A350-900 in September this year. The airline itself had an order for 20 in place with Airbus already, and is now also going to receive seven that KLM had previously placed orders for. This will give them a sizeable fleet of 28 A350-900s when all orders are delivered. Adding nine (or less) more aircraft to this order would be no big deal for the carrier.
However, the A330neo is a new idea to the table from Air France. While it would seem that a small widebody aircraft, perhaps Air France are looking for optimal economies, having already cited the A380 as being too difficult to fill. The A330neo would allow more frequency of services, something which is emerging as a passenger preference over just a few flights on larger aircraft.
Although the A330neo would be a new type to Air France, the switch would be amazingly easy. There’s a huge amount of commonality between their existing A330-200 and the neo, meaning there would be minimal upskilling required for pilots and maintenance crew. Having the A350 in the fleet too will add commonality between the Trent XWB and the Trent 7000 used on the neo.
It’s very difficult to predict which way Air France will go. Both the A350 and the A330neo are superb aircraft, so whichever way they jump, they’re sure to end up with a strong addition to the fleet.
What about the 787?
Already the airline has nine 787-9s in its fleet, meaning that the infrastructure and knowledge is already in place to take on more of this model easily. However, the six they previously ordered from Boeing are now destined to head to KLM, suggesting that more Dreamliners are not in the airline’s future.
One analyst pressed Smith on the 787-9, making the point that, as Air France has just flipped its order over to KLM under the premise of ‘fleet normalization’, would the Dreamliner still be a realistic option for the carrier. Smith responded saying, “Most definitely”. He went on to say,
“…with the requirement immediately for 9 aircraft to replace the A380s; that is, [to] have a fleet of 19 787s is perfectly adequate. Eventually down the road, we will have to replace our A330-200s and the 787-9 is smaller than the 350-900 platform. So we'll have to evaluate whether having a greater number of airplanes and the efficiency that provides … weighs off what some of the other options are.”
One thing that was made clear in the earnings call was that Air France is not in a rush to make any decisions. They’ll be looking at pricing, integration and efficiency of all aircraft under consideration, and Smith has made clear that his final decision will not be rushed.
Which aircraft do you think Air France will order? Do you think the A330neo would be a good fit for their fleet? Let us know in the comments.