(Engine sound)
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- With a price tag of $445 million.
The A380 is the most lavish
and most expensive plane ever built.
But it hasn't been a game changer, Airbus had hoped.
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Last year, Airbus had announced
the end of A380 production in 2021.
Production will end with just 251, A380s.
- If you have a product, that nobody wants anymore,
or you can sell only below production cost,
you have to stop it, as painful as it is.
But we have not been giving up easily on the 380.
And I think you know,
that we did various analysis in recent years.
What else we could do, with the 380,
but it turned out that for, measures like re-engineering
or stretching the aircraft,
we wouldn't find customers or not enough customers.
(upbeat music)
- And last month we saw the last A380
rolled out assembly line (indistinct),
marking the end of A380 productions.
- For sure, it's a sad day for all of us.
I mean, on the 380, yes,
we would have wished that domain to be better.
- I often get asked what editing software do you use
to edit your video?
I want to share with you a new editing software
called Wondershare Filmora 10,
which is designed for beginners.
So you don't need to spend too much time
to learn how to get started
when compared with other professional softwares.
In the Mora 10,
you can easily add, cuts and edits.
There are lots of transitions and music to choose from.
One of the great feature is Audio Ducking.
Is only one click to quickly feed the music
so your dialogue stands out.
I often get asked what editing software do you use.
The Mora 10 came with Motion Tracking,
you can easily track any moving objects in your scene
in just one click.
Here, I'm using the function
to put text next to the moving A380.
Often I shoot from a few different cameras,
which all have slightly different colours.
The Mora 10 can easily fix the colour variations
with one click to match colour.
The Mora 10 also allows me to do some advanced editing
such as Key Framing.
Thanks to the editable presets
to make this the easiest key framing experience around.
Simply apply one click presets
for the easier key frame experience
or end to make freely.
Guys, the download link is in the description,
and you can try Filmora for free before buy it.
Well, the A380 was already in great decline before COVID.
The smaller 787 and A350 new generation aircraft
provided much greater flexibility
and less risk for airline operations.
- [Ian] Unfortunately, it was a wrong aircraft
at the wrong time.
They were in a contest with Boeing.
They wanted to be different to Boeing,
but Boeing basically went long and then was 787,
and Airbus went less range,
more seats and gambled incorrectly.
And they've lost.
- [Michael] It often was the first topic of discussion
in the early two thousands.
When you met with the teams
from either of those manufacturers,
what do you think?
And the 787 versus A380 story,
we knew there was always more demand
for units at the 787 and less for the A380,
but it is a shame to see such an incredible aircraft
falling out of favour
and having what potential looks like a limited life.
- Clearly the improvement on the very efficient twins,
the large white body twins in particular A350,
but now also A330
somehow when took some of the benefits
A380 offered at the point in time away,
and therefore probably offers more flexibility
at very attractive economic terms to the customers.
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- I invited A380 pilot and the A380 engineer
to talk about what is it like to fly
and work on the A380.
- My name's Andrew Barsby of Airbus A380 training captain.
I have 11,300 hours total time
of which I have just under 5,000 hours
on the Airbus A380.
Having flown the A380 and the A320 in comparison,
There was very, I found very little difference
in the handling characteristics of the aircraft.
One of the biggest comparisons
is the one thing that I like about the A380
is the less paper cockpit environment.
There was less manual,
less paper manuals and paper checklist to go through
because Airbus have integrated a lot of their technologies
into the avionics suite of the A380.
From a reliability point of view,
the A380 is very reliable,
very safe aircraft.
I really had any issues while flowing the aircraft
over six years.
I recall once when I had a go around on the A380
on alone flight,
we selected the full power,
which was the procedure at the time,
and it has a massive amount of power.
It has well in excessive what's required
for a go around.
(Engine sound)
So Airbus have now put a technology on board
that limits the amount of power necessary for a go around.
One of my fondest memories of the A380
is knowing that it's a fast aircraft and it gets up high.
So you get airborne out of an airport
and you will see an aircraft that is,
you know is going to the same destination as you
is getting up high and fast
and racing that traffic and beating at home.
That's one of my fondest memories.
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- Hi, my name is Rizwan Baig,
I'm a structures engineer on A380.
And I have worked on this aircraft
for a little more than seven years
till these aircraft were grounded.
I've spent seven and a half years working on this aircraft,
taking care of it,
making it safe for the passengers and making it good to fly.
I've done extensive checks on this aircraft,
spent a lot of time working on it,
and it's really sad to see it going like that.
I hope the pandemic gets over very soon
and we get our hands back on this aircraft.
It's a very safe aircraft
and should be flying at least 10 more years.
It has a very good service life.
Some of you might remember the incident which happened
with AirFrance and they had their engine number four
blown out somewhere over North Atlantic
and the other airlines which were operating A380,
they went on an extensive inspection programme
for this engine type.
Then we had to remove the fan
and we had to inspect this fan blade hub
so that there are no cracks or no discrepancies.
And just to prevent these kinds of things
to happen again in the future.
That was one of the great things
that I learned during my career.
And it was a great experience for me.
- Personally I love the quietness
and the spaciousness inside the A380.
Even the economy class on the A380
is far more spacious than many other planes.
Because of the enormous room
the A380 offer
the first and business class stands out.
And there are lots of great unique products
only found on the A380.
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- One thing about the A380 is that
when it gets onto an airport,
it has a presence on that airport.
I've had numerous times where I've flown into airports
all over the world
where I'm flying over the airport perimeter fence,
coming in for landing and you see cars stop
and people taking photos.
And it is an aircraft that stops traffic.
Plane spotters will travel all over
just to see this aircraft.
I've heard of people actually flying from different cities
to capital cities,
just so they can be a passenger on the A380.
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- Since its entry into service,
the A380 has carried almost 250 million passengers.
Before COVID, an A380 takes off and lands
around the world every few minutes.
The A380 fleets marks over 300 flights per day.
Operate on more than 120 routes
and 60 destinations in the world.
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In just a few months,
the fortune of A380 has changed drastically.
The A380 now became an obsolete aeroplane
that no airlines want to talk about it
because of the very low passenger demand right now.
With all the uncertainty ahead,
airline don't even know the A380 will be used
in the future.
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- AirFrance is the first airline
to announce the complete retirement of the A380 fleets.
Their A380 has an outdated products.
So the company decided not to spend money to refurbish it
and just to retire it.
On the other hand,
Qantas has a few A380 recently went through
complete cabinet refurbishment,
and then they flew straight
into the California deserts of Victorville
for longterm storage.
The Lufthansa CEO is very uncertain about the A380 future.
He think the largest plane in Lufthansa fleet
will be the 747-8.
The Etihad has CEO Tony Douglas said,
"I'm not trying to rule out the A380.
It will bring my heart even more to do so at this stage,
but in the same way the 747 has been finally retired
pretty much everywhere
I think we are probably going to see
now an acceleration of the same with a global A380 fleet."
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Asiana from South Korea has operated a few joy flights
of A380 over Korea that helps to keep the pilots
and the fleets recency.
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ANA from Japan is the last carrier
to receive their A380.
They have painted three of their A380
into flying whole new livery, all very, very striking.
And they believe the A380
will continue to play a dominant role
between Japan and Hawaii on the leisure flights.
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A few other airlines are still currently reviewing
their A380 operation
and haven't spoke about their future of the A380 fleets,
such as Singapore airlines,
Thai Airways and Korean Air.
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The biggest A380 operator is Emirates.
They accounted for almost half of all the A380 produced
in the world.
We've 115 currently into fleets
and eight more yet to be delivered.
Currently Emirates are still flying the A380,
to a handful of destination like London, Paris, Cairo,
Wuhan and Moscow.
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- COVID destroyed the Emirates hub strategy
that funnelling millions of passenger furries hop in Dubai.
And then on to destinations around the world.
There is simply very little connectivity right now
with border closures and strict quarantine rules.
It is not the short-haul
but the long-haul flying that are effected mostly.
And the A380 of course,
is a primarily a long-haul aeroplane.
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The open question remains
what Emirates would do with all the A380s.
They're still even eight or nine A380s
hasn't been delivered.
- [Michael] On the future of the A380,
like all aircraft decisions
that comes down to ownership costs,
fuel costs, maintenance costs, and fit to market.
As ownership costs reduces
any aircraft could potentially have a home.
However, I'm not that optimistic about the A380
going forward, because of market fit
and these other cost issues.
- According to the Quantas airlines, CEO Alan Joyce,
he said, "The operating costs on two 787
is still less than operating one single A380."
Etihad airways CEO Tony Douglas said,
"The seven 87 Dreamliner is massively, massively
more efficient per seat kilometre than the A380.
And everybody knows that.
So we are heartbroken to see our A380s parked up."
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The CEO of Qatar airways, Akbar Al Baker
has spoken out he's airline plans for his A380s.
"I don't think that the A380
will get back into the skies in short term,
the growth rates will have to be the growth rates
we achieved in 2019 for us to consider the A380.
We don't think that we're going to operate our A380s
for at least the next couple of years.
We recently benchmarked the A380 against A350
on many routes and the results were astonishing.
We found that on the typical one-way flights,
the A350 save the minimum of 16 tonnes of Co2
per block hour,
compared to the A380 .
Analysis has also found that
A380 admit to over 80% more carbon dioxide per block hour
than the A350 on each of these routes.
Sustainable fuel efficient fleets
will be key to not only surviving this current crisis,
but also essential to the future success of airlines.
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There's no doubt the A380
is a phenomenal feat of engineering.
It is twice as much as a blue whale,
and also just as long as a football pitch, yet it flies,
but the facts speak for itself.
The A380 has not been a success
in the broader sense of the world.
In fact, the unit costs is much higher on the A380
than the twin engine aircraft.
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My personal prediction is that more than half
of the world A380 fleets would not come back.
Airlines are not short of planes right now.
They will only use smaller and more efficient plane
because of the lower demand.
So most of the A380s will be right off
because of Corona virus from the airlines balance sheets,
just like the supersonic Concorde.
When the Concorde retired in 2003,
we took a step back in terms of speed.
It will be sad to see when the A380 retire.
There'll be never a plane as big as the A380 in the sky.
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The A380 will always be remembered as a great whisper giants
that offer incredible comfort to the passengers.
But it also prove that
it is profits that really drives
an airliner to fly.
The unforgiving corona virus,
unfortunately delivered the final blow to A380.
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- I really enjoyed working on this particular aircraft.
It's huge size and safety wise.
It's one of the safest aircraft to fly on.
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- The biggest commercial airliner that we'll ever fly.
There won't be anything bigger than the A380.
Was privileged to fly it.
It was an honour to fly it.
And hopefully one day in the future,
we'll get to fly it again.
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