Emirates relies on the super Airbus A380 again

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Good news for all fans of the A380: Soon more examples of the super Airbus will be in the air again. The Gulf airline Emirates submits, even Lufthansa is thinking about it.

Coming up more often soon : Emirates A380

The world's largest fleet of wide-bodied aircraft, the A380, should be fully airborne again as soon as possible in view of rising passenger numbers. This was announced by the head of the Emirates airline, Tim Clark, on Wednesday in Berlin on the sidelines of the ILA air show. Accordingly, 65 to 70 of the 119 operational Emirates examples of the world's largest passenger aircraft are currently flying. The remaining aircraft are scheduled to be activated once the crews are trained, Clark said.

“We'll bring them back as soon as we can. The bottleneck is our training capacity.” 40 to 50 pilots still have to be trained, as do cabin crews. It is about the highest standard of security. “We don't make any compromises.”

16. December 2021: The last Airbus A380 leaves the assembly halls in Hamburg

Lufthansa is also rethinking 

Lufthansa is also considering returning its mothballed A380 in view of the strong demand for tickets. The decision on this should be made in the summer. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said at the General Assembly of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Doha on Monday that a reactivation of the machines would be checked for next summer. In April, Spohr no longer confirmed the future of the A380 in the group. “It's finally over,” he told the magazine  Der Spiegel said and announced the sale of the 14 machines. In May, he did not completely rule out reactivating some of the eight remaining machines in the series – but only if demand unexpectedly recovered. Even before the corona pandemic, management had decided to return six of the machines to Airbus. The group shut down the remaining jets due to the downturn in business as a result of the pandemic.

Parked Airbus A380 from Lufthansa in Teruel (Spain)

Emirates is also presenting its A380 at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) in Schönefeld. Emirates has been trying for years to get additional landing rights so that it can also fly to BER in Germany. “Why build a great new airport and not let anyone in?” Clark asked. They want to provide additional services and not harm anyone, Clark assured, “including our friends in Frankfurt,” he added, referring to Lufthansa. At the same time, he ruled out withdrawing from other airports such as Hamburg in favor of BER.

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    Author: Insa Wrede, Henrik Böhme


hb/iw (dpa)