With a heart-shaped flight path, Airbus’s last A380 took off last week from the final assembly plant in Hamburg, headed where more than half the 250 A380s went: to Dubai’s Emirates Airways.
The superjumbo, capable of carrying 500 to 800 passengers in different configurations, ended production after 14 years, a disappointment to its planners who expected it to draw a thousand or more orders. Other than Emirates, few airlines bought in large numbers, and some only because they had to, such as Air France and Lufthansa.
The plane was designed for an expected era of global hub-and-spoke flying, transferring passengers at huge hubs such as Dubai, and while that has been a successful model for a few airlines, including the Gulf carriers, most passengers have opted where possible for direct flights. At the same time, the A380’s four-engine model has faded in favor of efficient two-engine planes, some of them pushing the A380 for effective capacity.
Many airlines began shedding A380s during the pandemic’s early drop in flying, and only a few are returning them to service.
