Customers Soar And New Plane Orders Haven't Arrived, Lufthansa Re-operates Superjumbo A380

Armada Airbus A380 Lufthansa. (Wikimedia Commons/TJDarmstadt)

JAKARTA - Who is not familiar with the Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft? The A380 Superjumbo is loved among aviation enthusiasts, thanks to its spacious interior, large size and quiet flight experience.

However, the days have been set since Airbus announced in 2019 that it was discontinuing production of the aircraft. Expensive to run, the death of the world's largest passenger plane appears to have been hastened by the travel slump of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But now German airline Lufthansa, which has sold its grounded A380 and is understood to be retiring the plane from its fleet - has announced plans to move the massive plane from the summer of 2023.

In a statement released last month, Lufthansa said the plane was returning "in response to a sharp rise in customer demand and delays in the delivery of aircraft ordered," noting the A380 remains popular with its crew, as well as passengers.

Lufthansa has sold six of its A380s over the past few years. However, the airline still has eight superjumbos left in its fleet. These planes are currently in "deep storage" in Spain and France.

However, the German flag carrier said it was still assessing how many A380s would be reactivated, and figuring out what routes they might take.

Lufthansa's Airbus A380 fleet. (Wikimedia Commons/KIbicArki1929)

Usually airlines use superjumbos on popular long-haul routes. The size of the planes made them expensive to run, so there had to be demand to justify them.

While in recent years the A380 seemed to be coming out, Lufthansa's decision suggests that the A380 hasn't made its way into the history books just yet.

Besides Lufthansa, the superjumbo fleet also remains in the fleets of Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Korean Air, All Nippon Airways and British Airways.

Following delivery of the last A380 in December 2021, Emirates president Tim Clark said it will "remain Emirates' flagship product for years to come."

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines acknowledged the passenger appeal of the superjumbo when it announced plans to return the plane last year. "Some people just order the A380 specifically to fly on it," Siva Govindasamy, Singapore Airlines' head of global public affairs, told CNN Travel.

Earlier this year, an Airbus A380 also completed a test flight that is powered by Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF, a type of fuel made mostly from used cooking oil and waste fat, and runs on a single Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine.