Air France announced today its future fleet plans, with the entry into service of a new type of aircraft, and the exit of a very large aircraft.
The airline will take a firm order for 60 Airbus A220-300, with a further 30 options and 30 acquisition rights in another win for the A220 programme.
Air France A220-300 – Render, Air France via Youtube
The A220-300s will gradually replace the smaller Airbus A318 and A319s that Air France currently operates. According to the airline,
“With a capacity of 149 seats and an operating range of 2,300 nautical miles, the A220-300 is perfectly suited to replace the A318 and A319 on the Air France short- and medium-haul network.”
Considering that A318 operates in a 118 seat configuration, whilst the A319s in either a 139 or 142 seats, there are capacity uplifts across the board. Air France state that this will reduce the cost per seat by 10% compares to the older aircraft it replaces.
The planes will be configured with Wi-Fi on board too.
Meanwhile, the airline plans to retire the Airbus A380 by 2022. Currently, three aircraft were pencilled out to be removed, but the airline has decided the A380 isn’t worth it and is going for full fleet removal.
The first three frames being withdrawn are leased aircraft, whilst a further two fall into that category. The remaining five are owned by the Airline. These aircraft entered the fleet between 2009 and 2014.
The airline blames the “competitive environment limits the markets in which the A380 can profitably operate” for the withdrawal of the type. Additional blame is levied on the four engines used to power this, along with increased servicing costs and refurbishment costs. This combined with Airbus suspending the development and marketing programme earlier this year is enough for Air France to pull the plug.
Air France KLM Group is studying possible replacement options for these aircraft.
In quotes
Benjamin Smith, CEO of the Air France-KLM Group said
“These decisions support the Air France-KLM Group’s fleet competitiveness strategy,”
“They follow the recent orders for A350s and Boeing 787s that Air France and KLM have placed. We are very pleased to work with Airbus to add the A220-300 to our fleet, an aircraft that demonstrates optimum environmental, operational, and economic efficiency. The selection of the Airbus A220-300 supports our goal of a more sustainable operation, by significantly reducing CO2 and noise emissions. This aircraft will also provide our customers with additional comfort on the short- and medium-haul network and will provide our pilots with a connected cockpit with access to the latest navigation technology. This is a very important next step in Air France’s transformation, and this evolution in Air France’s fleet underlines the Group’s determination to attain European airline leadership.”
Exit A380. Hello A220.
Even spotting the top of an Air France A380 is going to be a lot tougher in the future – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
For those who prefer the Airbus A380 in terms of the passenger experience and sheer room it can offer – it’s another blow as another carrier marks when they want to withdrawn their favourite type of aircraft.
@AirlineFlyer https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer kindly drew this chart of up operators and fleet intentions:
Now that Air France has announced plans for its A380 fleet, I put together a list of the status of the world’s A380 fleet and future plans pic.twitter.com/TWaNPxnZ4t
— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) July 30, 2019
It’s not a pretty picture for the A380 long term to say the least.
Meanwhile, the Airbus A220 programme is starting to turn into the thing that Bombardier struggled with when it was trying to run the programme alone – a success. With 60 firm orders, the programme stands at 551 firm orders 267 options and 52 purchase rights. Before Airbus took the reigns, this stood at 343 firm orders – a considerable uplift in sales.
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It’s rather sad that Air France have decided to retire their A380s. These are very comfortable planes from a passenger perspective, but totally understand filling them profitably is challenging. When you consider how much they would have had to spend to update the cabins, plus the increasing maintenance costs, it’s easy to see how they arrived at their decision.