Qantas Sends Airbus A380 Fleet to California Mojave Desert. Fleet mothballed until 2023.

[bronxiteforever]

Last edited Mon Jul 6, 2020, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Airline Geeks
[ PLANES ]July 6, 2020 7:00 am ET
By Bulent Imat

Qantas had grounded all 12 of its A380 aircraft in the wake of the fallout stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic. Current locations of the airline’s super-jumbos are still widely distributed. Nine of them are currently stored at the airports in and around Melbourne, Sydney and Los Angeles. One is in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, while two A380s are at Dresden Airport in Germany.

The airline is looking to transfer all of its A380 fleet to the Mojave Desert in California, where they will be mothballed until at least 2023. During a press teleconference, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce stated that the airline would park the A380s for at least three years.

“The A380s have to remain on the ground for at least three years until we see those international volumes brought back,” Joyce said. “The aircraft are being put into the Mojave Desert, where the environment protects the aircraft because we have the intention at the right time to restart them, but that is a considerable amount of time away.”

... The domestic flight market will get back to maybe 70% of pre-COVID[-19] levels in the next year and the following year to 100%,” Joyce said at a briefing. “We think international will take a long time – nothing this next financial year— and next July we may start to see some international services and that will only get us to 50% the following year.”

https://airlinegeeks.com/2020/07/06/singapore-airlines-qantas-send-a380s-desert-for-storage/


Mojave Desert Airport experts in airplane storage

https://www.britannica.com/video/179810/slowdown-planes-airplane-industry-video-Mojave-Desert-2009

[msongs]

1. australia has masses of dry deserts, wonder why no parking lots there nt

[CaptainTruth]

2. It's sad to see 380's being used for parts or scrapped so soon.

My airplane geek friends say it's not just excess pax capacity, it's the expense of maintaining 4 engines vs 2.

[bronxiteforever]

3. Interesting but given the collapse of international air travel

it is problematic for any airliner.
“LAX passenger counts dropped more than 90% year over year in May.The devastation to the travel industry wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic continued to hold Los Angeles International and other local airports in its grip in May.

Passenger counts dropped more than 90% at LAX and Long Beach and 85% at Ontario International compared with May of last year.

https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2020/jul/06/airports-post-sharp-traffic-declines-again-may/

You friend may be right about the planes and COVID-19 is going to accelerate failures across the board(restaurant chains etc)
I was listening to RTÉ from Ireland today-no American tourists in Ireland. COVID-19 could be a decade long impact on travel revenue.

[CaptainTruth]

4. Yes, all true, but some airlines were starting to phase out 380s before COVID.

I'm not an expert but I hear from at least a couple dozen folks in the industry, at all levels, & the writing was on the wall for the 380 before COVID. New planes coming out are all 2 engine & the folks who know this stuff say that the cost saving (sounds like mainly maintenance) of 2 vs 4 is dooming 4 engine planes to the scrap yard.

Sad to see for the 380, it's a beautiful bird & to me they're still "new." Makes me wonder if they could be converted to cargo, but I know that can also be expensive.