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.
- The end of the giant planes
Farewell to Sydney
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has retired the last Boeing 747 in his fleet. The final journey leads to California's Mojave Desert. Qantas was once the only airline in the world with a 747 fleet. A total of 30 jumbos are currently in use worldwide, most of them as cargo planes.
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Bye Bye Jumbo too in London
At the end of last week, British Airways announced that it would be shutting down its entire 747 fleet early and with immediate effect. “Due to the drop in travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unlikely that our 'Queen of the Skies' will ever again offer commercial services to British Airways,” the airline said.
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Mass crowds on first flight
The first commercial flight of the Boeing 747 with Pan Am was on January 21, 1970 from New York to London. Around 9,000 people had registered for the premiere, but in the end only a good 360 were able to fly, and only with obstacles. After an engine overheated, everyone had to switch to a replacement aircraft, which then took off almost seven hours late.
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glamor of the queen of Air
Up until the end of the 1960s, flying was something for the wealthy, but now, thanks to cheaper tickets, normal earners could also afford flights. Even so, the 747 was not easy to fill. Since flight prices were still set by the state at the time, the airlines lured passengers with luxuries such as cocktail lounges with sofas and kidney-shaped tables in the rear. To date, the 747 has carried almost six billion people.
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The oil crisis also slowed down the Boeing 747
A few years after the brilliant start, the oil crisis in 1973 choked off enthusiasm for the jumbo again. Many airlines have had to ground their 747s simply because it was too expensive to get them airborne. Plane orders have been cancelled. It was not until the mid-1970s that the jumbo jet blossomed into the dominant long-haul aircraft.
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revolutionized long-distance icons aviation
Over the past five decades, the 747 has helped transform global air travel. Airports were developed into huge hubs, because the mighty jumbo jet could transport many passengers at the same time over long distances and then be flown on to regional airports in smaller planes.
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assassination attempts, technical problems , human error
There were also tragic events in the jumbo jet era, such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 (pictured) or the 1977 crash of two 747s on the runway at Tenerife Airport that killed more than 500 people. Several Boeing 747s lost an entire engine in flight. A cargo version therefore crashed on a house in Amsterdam.
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747 hardly ever in demand
The industry now relies on smaller machines with two engines that consume less fuel. According to industry sources, Boeing ordered the last parts for the 747 from suppliers at least a year ago. With a construction rate of half an aircraft per month, the program still has more than two years to go, according to a spokesman for the group.
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The US President continues to fly 747
According to Bloomberg, the dozen or so aircraft ordered from Boeing are all freighter versions of the 747, and no new jumbos have been ordered in the passenger area for years. The last order came from 2017, according to the Reuters news agency. The US government ordered two 747-8s as Air Force One for the President.
- The end of the giant planes
Airbus is also no longer producing
Over the past 50 years, more than 1550 Model 747 machines have been delivered. The European competitor Airbus already gave up its prestige project A380 at the beginning of 2019. The production of the giant aircraft will only run until 2021, Airbus announced in February. A total of only around 250 A380 machines were sold.
hb/iw (dpa)