It’s time for some positive A380 news after the QF32 engine incident – and we’ll kick off with Skymark Airlines of Japan who have confirmed to Airbus they wish to order Four A380’s for Japanese Domestic operations only.
That’s right. Domestic Operations.
Japan has a habit of needing to shift a lot of people around – and it’s not uncommon to find 747-400’s that were build for “Domestic” use only (ANA’s Pokemon aircraft are a speciality). More recently, 777-300’s have been rostered into this duty.
Which is nice.
However, A380’s will give one heck of a capacity to these routes -especially for an airline that currently runs a fleet of 15 737-800′.
Configuration of these aircraft is yet to be decided, but it could be the second operator to pack their aircraft to the theoretical 800+ passenger capacity an A380 has – although Skymark has indicated they wish to run these aircraft on “long haul” routes.
What this means is anyone’s guess as they’re a domestic operation… at the moment.
Another interesting fact is these will be the first A380’s to be based and brought by a Japanese firm. Could this give ANA and JAL a kick to operate them? Guess we’ll see….
