Airbus A380: 4 years of service

Last month marked the fourth anniversary of the Airbus A380’s entry into service. Since the maiden commercial flight by Singapore Airlines, A380s have carried more than 20 million passengers on flights with SIA and five other operators: Emirates, Qantas, Air France, Lufthansa, Korean Air and China Southern. 59 A380s are now in service.

A380 operations are clustered around a handful of key international points. A380s currently serve 25 airports on 42 separate routes. Seven airports account for more than half of all A380 routes.

Outside of the home hubs of A380 operators – Singapore, Dubai, Sydney, Melbourne, Paris CDG, Frankfurt, Seoul and Beijing – the most important airports are London LHR, New York JFK, Los Angeles, Tokyo NRT, Hong Kong and Johannesburg. These airports have three airlines flying A380s to/from them.

A380 current destinations:

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A380 frequencies:

Upcoming routes:

A380: Operational analysis

The Airbus A380 has rapidly become the new flagship of these airlines.

The proposed flying program for the A380 contains the following flights at the end of  October:

Here is what the operational characteristics look like:

With an average daily utilization of 13 hours 26 minutes, the A380 fleet is well used. This high proposed utilization speak for the airlines’ confidence in their A380 fleet, which is likely displaying very solid dispatch reliability levels.

But there is obviously an issue at Air France since the airline uses each of its 6 A380 for only 6 hours 21 minutes everyday. China Southern just got its first aircraft one month ago that is why utilization is well below average international standards but the airline will move overseas as soon as it gets its third A380 in February 2012.

At just below 9 hours, the average stage length for the A380s flying program shows that most aircraft are deployed on missions for what they are designed for. However some airlines such as Emirates and Air France prefer deploying the aircraft where tney need the capacity without necessarily making use of its full range capabilities.

The A380, highly appreciated by customers, is also a very powerful tool to gain competitive advantage on highly competitive markets.