Across the airline industry, big planes are vanishing. Today’s fleet of Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s is significantly smaller than it was a year ago. In a shift away from huge, high-capacity aircraft, airlines are opting instead for smaller, nimbler jets. In a pandemic environment, this makes a lot of sense, but is this a trend that will stay with us long-term?
“I think airlines have realized that a 787 or an A350-900 has more utility in this environment, in terms of its size and operating costs, than a larger gauged airplane. Now, how long this trend will continue, it’s kind of hard to tell, but it’s certainly been a setback for the Airbus [A380] and also for the 777X.” – Steve Udvar-Hazy, Chairman Air Lease Corporation, CAPA Live
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Why smaller planes make sense
The reason for the popularity of large aircraft in the past was the desire to operate out of the biggest and busiest airports. Locations such as London Heathrow, New York JFK and Hong Kong International are consistently oversubscribed, making it difficult for airlines to grow by adding more services.
When airlines can’t add services, the only way to achieve growth is to send bigger planes. That need saw the rise of larger and larger jets, the 747, 777, A340 and, of course, the A380. Chairman of Air Lease Corporation, Steve Udvar-Hazy, commented on this at a recent CAPA Live event, saying,
“I think the widebody situation has changed a lot because, for a while, there was this fear in the airline industry … there would be slot restrictions. And the only way an airline can grow is to have a larger gauge at each departure. That led to the 380; the 747-8, so big was the way to go. It was the only way to allow airlines to offer more capacity with frequency limitations at a lot of these…