With the pandemic closing down air travel, the airline industry came to a near halt with many airlines grounding many of their airplanes.
The Airbus A380 was among the airplanes impacted the most with Air France, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, etc having expressed plans to retire the aircraft.
On brighter news for the A380, Qatar Airways decided to bring back the superjumbo into the operational fleet due to capacity shortage.
For the first time in more than 18 months, a Qatar Airways A380 was back in the skies in a positioning flight from Doha International Airport (DIA) to Hamad International Airport (HIA) earlier this week.
It is anticipated that at least five of the airline’s 10 A380 aircraft will be brought back into service temporarily over the coming weeks to support fleet capacity on key winter routes, including London Heathrow (LHR) and Paris (CDG), from 15 December 2021.
The airline is facing significant limitations to its fleet capacity as a result of the recent grounding of 19 of its Airbus A350 fleet due to an accelerated surface degradation condition impacting the surface of the aircraft below the paint, as mandated by the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA).
Comentários