Emirates boss warns A380s will disappear from the skies unless manufacturers make new ones

Emirates president Tim Clark has revealed how much longer the airline plans to operate its bumper fleet of A380s as he steps up pressure on Airbus to revive production.

The world’s biggest operator of A380s has warned the superjumbos will disappear from the skies by 2040 unless aircraft manufacturers commit to producing a more fuel efficient, next generation double-decker.

Speaking in Delhi, where airline chief executives have gathered for the International Air Transport Association AGM, Emirates president Tim Clark revealed the expiry date for A380s and provided more details of his plan to overhaul economy cabins.

Emirates operates a fleet of 116 A380s, many of which are relatively young after being delivered in 2021 just before Airbus halted production for good.

Sir Tim said Emirates had a huge store of A380 parts from retired aircraft, and he was confident they would operate until the late 2030s, after at least one more cabin refit.

“We’ve just done one, but like a hotel you’ve got to keep at it, and we’ll change out the products,” he said.

“In fact, I’ve got another design of first class coming up, which is on the drawing board.”

Plans for a new economy seat were also afoot, with Sir Tim conceding “cattle class” had not advanced at the same pace as other cabins.

“We did a lot of work in the 1990s, reshaping and redesigning the ergonomics, the architecture of the seat, the articulation and everything else, but after that we stopped and concentrated on the premium products,” he said.

“I decided about three years ago we had to go back into the economy side of things and lift that product alone, keeping in mind that aircraft are flying for longer — look at Project Sunrise at Qantas.”

Emirates has 116 A380s, and wants more.

To achieve more comfort, Sir Tim was not necessarily planning to increase the size or pitch of economy seats, but he believed there was potential to raise their height.

“It’s very difficult, we’ve got the usual financial economic metrics to work with, but I still think we can do a lot better in the way we present the comfort of the seat, the way it moulds to the body, the way the feet are treated, the legs,” he said.

“If you put four or five inches (10 to 12cm) on the height of the seats, what could you play with if you did that? I’ve been told the cabin crew can’t see to the back, but (planes) have cameras everywhere now. The A380 is full of cameras.”

It was possible the new economy seat could be on a Boeing 777X when they finally start to arrive in Dubai either late next year or early 2027, more than six years behind schedule.

With the capacity to carry just over 425 passengers, the 777X will be the biggest commercial passenger aircraft to be produced since the A380.

Sir Tim said he had not entirely given up hope that manufacturers would adopt his own design for a new 25 per cent more fuel efficient version of the superjumbo.

“I’m still shown the door when I mention it, but I’m still asking,” he said.

“If you talk to (Boeing CEO) Kelly Ortberg about something like this he says ‘I can’t even get my own aeroplanes out of the door today, let alone build this one’, and then (Airbus CEO) Guillaume Faury has an order book coming out of his ears for the A320 line and the 350s. He’d probably say they don’t need to do it.”

Asked if he would take his design to the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, which is now producing its own narrowbody jet known as the C919, Sir Tim said he believed the Chinese manufacturer was “nowhere near” making something like a A380.

“Not to say they couldn’t in the future, but at the moment they’ve got to go through a lot more than they have done,” he said.

On the sensitive issue of airlines’ commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, Sir Tim remained of the view it was looking increasingly difficult to achieve.

He said when the target was first set in 2021, “the elephant in the room was its achievability” and it was now clear production of sustainable aviation fuel was not moving at a pace the airline industry thought it would.

“There’s a sort of pull back a little bit on this now … given that the world population continues to grow and demand for air travel continues to grow. It’s a very difficult one to manage,” Sir Tim said.

The writer travelled as a guest of IATA to Delhi.

Originally published as Emirates boss warns A380s will disappear from the skies unless manufacturers make new ones