“At Heathrow, they can’t even agree on the third runway. “If you take the A380s out of the frame by the mid-2030s, how are you going to make it work? Do we see massive upgrades of airfields or new airfields?
“Supply will be suppressed, demand will continue to grow, and when that happens prices rise, it’s inevitable. “Even with multiple 787s and A350s all busy flying around the world, I still don’t get how you will pick up that growth curve,” says Clark. The “math” Clark refers to comes from demand for air travel, which he says was growing by about 4.5% per year before the pandemic.Īssuming that curve is recaptured, it would take just 10 to 15 years to see demand increase by half. And it was 519 before, so you get where I’m coming from.” “The biggest one will be the 777-9, whenever that comes to market, which in our configuration 364 people against 484 on the A380s with our new premium economy. “The math tells you that you need a big unit, much bigger than we’re getting at the moment,” he says. However, deliveries of these planes have been delayed and Clark believes they are too small to replace the A380 in Emirates’ fleet. EmiratesĬlark has long lamented the fact that neither Airbus or Boeing plan to build a new plane the size of the A380.Ĭurrently, the largest planes offered by the two leading manufacturers are the Airbus A350-1000 and the upcoming 777-9, which both seat just over 400 people in a standard configuration. People talked about these showers for years and they still do.”Įmirates' entire A380 fleet will be back in air by the spring of 2023. “But we succeeded, they worked with us, and the rest is history. And it’s no mean feat trying to get water up two decks, keep the pressure up, the heating and all that. “Clearly it was, but because we were such a big buyer, they complied. “But prior to the A380’s launch, the marketing program showed double page spreads with avenues of shops, lounges and cafes, so naturally I said, ‘that shouldn’t be a problem for you.’ “We designed the showers and then went to Airbus, who were very much arms folded at that time,” Clark adds.
EMIRATES AIRBUS A380 FIRST CLASS INSTALL
I realized that actually they would be hugely popular.”Ĭonvincing Airbus to install them, however, wasn’t easy. “It was a bit of a risk for us, but these were dead spaces which we couldn’t generate income from. “Airbus had come up with a fairly sad possibility of putting benches and having little lounges there, but the notion that you would have bathrooms with showers and all the other bits and pieces was an interesting one,” he says. There are two such suites, at the front of the upper deck, and Emirates is the only airline to offer them, after Clark explicitly requested them during the final design phase of the plane, in the early 2000s. The most distinctive feature of Emirates’ super jumbo, however, will remain the legendary shower spa, which offers first class passengers the luxury of a full-fledged shower at 35,000 feet. The Emirates A380 is equipped with a shower spa for first class passengers. The airline will start refreshing the interiors of almost 70 of its A380s later this year, adding a new premium economy class that will slightly reduce passenger capacity from 519 to 484.
“I was chuckling to myself, thinking ‘Wait and see.’ We started flying the A380 into Heathrow six times a day in October of last year, and we haven’t had a seat on any of them since.” “The notion that the A380 was a spent force was always a little bit of a difficult one for us to swallow,” Clark told CNN Travel in an exclusive interview. The entire fleet will be back in the air by spring of next year, as part of a resurgence that has seen the super jumbo reintroduced into service with many of its operators, after the pandemic led many to believe it was ready for retirement. The Dubai-based airline purchased nearly half of all A380s ever produced and now has 118 in its fleet, about 80 of which are currently flying. The A380 super jumbo has many supporters around the world, but none quite as vocal and powerful as Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, by far the largest operator of the aircraft.
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