Airbus axes the A380

Last week, Airbus announced the end of the line for its iconic double-deckered jumbo jet:

European plane manufacturer Airbus said Thursday it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world’s biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry’s most ambitious and most troubled endeavors. 

Barely a decade after the 500-plus-seat plane started carrying passengers, Airbus said in a statement that key client Emirates is cutting back its orders for the plane, and as a result, “we have no substantial A380 backlog and hence no basis to sustain production.” 

The decision could hurt up to 3,500 jobs and already cost the plane maker 463 million euros (about $523 million) in losses in 2018, Airbus said. 

This isn't much of surprise, considering that the A380 program had been on the chopping block a year ago before being thrown a lifeline by Emirates. I was skeptical at the time that the A380 would ultimately survive, and I was right.

Ben Mutzabaugh explains that the A380 program failed because "it never found a profitable niche:"

While the A380 can carry more passengers than any other commercial passenger plane, the four-engine aircraft also is more expensive to operate compared to modern two-engine jets. For example, Boeing's two-engine 777 models are cheaper to operate and can seat nearly 400 passengers.  

The A380 also required some airports to modify taxiways and airport terminals to be able to accommodate the giant jet. 

Even Boeing's iconic humped 747, its closest in capacity to the A380, has seen sales decline as passenger airlines increasingly prefer two-engine models that are less costly to operate. 

"The very clear trend in the market is to operate long-haul aircraft with two engines [such as] Boeing's 787 and 777, and Airbus's A330 and A350," Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of Flight Global, says to the BBC.

The A380 began flying for airlines just in 2007, when Singapore Airlines put the jet into passenger service.

Dubai-based carrier Emirates was an enthusiastic supporter of the jet, ordering nearly half of all the roughly 270 A380s Airbus is expected to have made before the line ends.
Beyond Emirates, however, the A380 never found the broad customer base Airbus envisioned.

No U.S. carriers ever gave serious consideration to ordering the jet. About a dozen other global airlines bought the jet, including Air France, British Airways, Korean Air, Lufthansa and Qantas, among others. But, aside from Emirates, the A380 was just a niche player in the fleets of most airlines to fly it.

The end of the A380 serves as a bookend to my series regarding the twilight of four-engined passenger jets. As majestic and exciting as these aircraft might be, there's simply no market for them anymore. Two-engined widebodies simply offer more flexibility and efficiency.

If you haven't yet flown on an A380, however, don't despair: the ones now flying and still on order will likely continue to fly well into the 2020s and perhaps even beyond.

Update: Josh Barro provides an excellent explainer about the economics behind the demise of the A380 program.