The removal of Emirates' A380s was confirmed in its latest schedule upload over the weekend. It shows the fragility of demand, and how much farther there is to go until normality returns.

It also indicates much optimism over the recovery, although Brisbane changed to the double-decker quadjet on March 1st, soon after Australia's border reopened.

It comes as the Gulf carrier makes multiple other changes to its A380 network, mainly involving frequency cuts, postponements, and delays to their return, to be covered in a separate article.

Emirates A380
Nice was the last of the eight to see the A380 on a regular basis, beginning in July 2017. Photo: Emirates.
 

On the topic of these route changes, an Emirates spokesperson commented,

"Emirates' planned A380 services to a few cities across our network has been deferred after a routine review of our operational requirements. Emirates is still committed on rebuilding our global network and services and we will announce the deployment of our A380 aircraft on specific routes at the appropriate time.”

Eight routes won't see Emirates' A380s

Those no longer seeing Emirates' A380s are shown below, with further changes extremely likely. There's a certain predictability about most of the eight, especially hard-hit Asia, whose recovery is slow. It's mainly the case for China, which seems to want a zero-COVID situation.

  1. Beijing (PEK): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Route suspended for the year
  2. Birmingham (BHX): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 2x daily B777-300ER
  3. Copenhagen (CPH): no A380 is now scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from October 30th. Will remain 1x daily B777-300ER
  4. Hong Kong (HKG): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to return on October 30th on the non-stop. Now 1x daily via Bangkok by B777-300ER; from October 30th, also 1x daily B777-300ER non-stop
  5. Nice (NCE): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 1x daily B777-300ER
  6. Prague (PRG): no A380 is now scheduled this year. Had expected to be 1x daily from October 30th. Will remain 1x daily B777-300ER
  7. Shanghai (PVG): no A380 is scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from July 1st. Route suspended for the year
  8. Tokyo (NRT): no A380 is scheduled for this year. Had expected to return 1x daily from July 1st. Will remain 1x daily B777-300ER
Emirates removes A380 service
Emirates deployed the A380 to BHX from March 2016. Image: GCMap.

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Birmingham, Copenhagen, Prague

Three of the European routes have lower premium demand generally and probably more than ever now. However, removing the A380 is less because of that and more because of lower overall demand.

After all, Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Prague were all scheduled to receive the two-class, 615-seat A380 variant, which doesn't have first class. They have 557 economy seats (up from a minimum of 338) and 58 business seats.

It means the three European routes can't currently sustain the higher premium offering of lower-density A380s, nor the higher volume of seats on the higher-capacity, two-class aircraft.

Shifting these three European routes to B777-300ERs as the recovery continues removes about 42% of seats for sale per departure or around 260 seats. It also means business class reduces by over a quarter.

What do you make of the changes? Let us know in the comments.