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  • Lufthanse retires all 747-400 and A380

    From Aviation HQ@2:292/854 to All on Sun Sep 13 10:24:36 2020
    Lufthansa plans to retire all Boeing 747-400s, all Airbus A380s and most A340s early, insiders report to Bloomberg. A few weeks ago it was already leaked that the German company was thinking about this, but now the farewell would be a lot closer. However, an official decision is still lacking.

    Due to the corona crisis, Lufthansa no longer needs these relatively thirsty aircraft. In addition, it is inefficient to maintain small sub-fleets of A380s and 747-400s, as some of them were disposed of early at the start of the crisis. According to the insiders, only a few relatively young A340-600s remain from the A340 fleet.

    The highly diluted long-haul fleet will then consist mainly of Airbus A350s, A330s and Boeing 747-8s, until the new Boeing 787-9s and 777-9s are delivered. According to Bloomberg, the narrowbody fleet is also being cut further. All in all, this will probably lead to additional job losses, on top of the previously announced reduction of 22,000 FTE.

    If Lufthansa retires the 747-400s and A380s, there will be hardly any European carriers left with these types in their passenger fleets. British Airways alone has a substantial fleet of the A380, and of the 747-400 the Russian Rossiya Airlines. Charterers such as Hi Fly and Wamos also have a few.

    --- DB4 - August 7 2020
    * Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)
  • From Vincent Coen@2:250/1 to Aviation HQ on Sun Sep 13 17:02:27 2020

    Sunday September 13 2020 10:24, you wrote to All:

    If Lufthansa retires the 747-400s and A380s, there will be hardly any European carriers left with these types in their passenger fleets.
    British Airways alone has a substantial fleet of the A380, and of the 747-400 the Russian Rossiya Airlines. Charterers such as Hi Fly and
    Wamos also have a few.


    Retiring the 47-4 is hardly surprising as they are 20 or more years old and costs for maintenance as spares etc are getting harder to find and are a lot more expensive making the a/c just too expensive per seat mile. Nothing out of
    the ordinary for 20+ year old a/c's and most airlines are removing them from their fleets, BA being but one.

    The 380's could be improved subject to engines by upgrading / replacing them BUT they are hardly likely to get 80+ % utilised any time soon so it is not cost justifiable.

    Vincent

    --- Mageia Linux v7.1 X64/Mbse v1.0.7.17/GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20180707
    * Origin: Air Applewood, The Linux Gateway to the UK & Eire (2:250/1)
  • From Ward Dossche@2:292/854 to Vincent Coen on Sun Sep 13 23:02:56 2020
    Retiring the 47-4 is hardly surprising as they are 20 or more years old
    and costs for maintenance as spares etc are getting harder to find and VC>
    are a lot more expensive making the a/c just too expensive per seat mile.

    Bollocks.

    The 747-400 is still fully supported by Boeing and all the spares remain available ... new spares ... not recovered ones from scrapped aircraft.

    It's 2 other elements that determine the demise of the 747-400 ... fuel-consumption and the nearing of the D-check.

    The 747-400 burns more than the 777-300ER with a comparable load-factor ... fuel is killing it. The seat-price per hour is too high in these unreliable times.

    With the lastone delivered in 2009 there are still some relatively young enough airframes around, but it just isn't competitive anymore ...

    The kicker though to ground them is that the close to 20-year airframes are nearing their next expensive D-check and it isn't worth it anymore. Mojave and Pima and Teruel's taxiways are already full of parked 747-400's. They're scrapped everywhere even at small airports such as Twente in the Netherlands.

    Technically they could be kept flying easy for another 10 years.

    The 380's could be improved subject to engines by upgrading .../

    Airbus launched plans for an A380-neo and Emirates commited to it, but the plan went nowhere...

    \%/@rd

    --- DB4 - August 7 2020
    * Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)