DUBAI, 3 November 2020: Emirates retired a 12-year old Airbus A380 last week the first retirement in a fleet that exceeds 100 aircraft according to a Simply Flying news report.
The airline said the retirement was planned before the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak last January. It has been flying commercial services since 2008 and was withdrawn from use 23 February a month before the grounding of Emirates’ flights worldwide due to Covid-19.
Emirates is not the only airline phasing out the world’s largest aircraft according to Simply Flying.
Singapore was the first airline offloading four aircraft. Air France retired its first aircraft towards the end of last year. However, it sped up the retirement of the remainder of its fleet due to the situation. Lufthansa followed by retiring half of its fleet of aircraft, with the rest unlikely to return to the skies.
Emirates is unlikely to stop operating the A380 any time soon. It has over 100 aircraft making up around half of its fleet. Additionally, eight of the remaining nine A380s to be delivered by Airbus are bound for the Middle East airline.
