(Engine sound) (upbeat music) - With a price tag of $445 million. The A380 is the most lavish and most expensive plane ever built. But it hasn't been a game
changer, Airbus had hoped. (upbeat music) Last year, Airbus had announced the end of A380 production in 2021. Production will end with just 251, A380s. - If you have a product,
that nobody wants anymore, or you can sell only
below production cost, you have to stop it, as painful as it is. But we have not been giving
up easily on the 380. And I think you know, that we did various
analysis in recent years. What else we could do, with the 380, but it turned out that for,
measures like re-engineering or stretching the aircraft, we wouldn't find customers
or not enough customers. (upbeat music) - And last month we saw the last A380 rolled out assembly line (indistinct), marking the end of A380 productions. - For sure, it's a sad day for all of us. I mean, on the 380, yes, we would have wished
that domain to be better. - I often get asked what
editing software do you use to edit your video? I want to share with you
a new editing software called Wondershare Filmora 10, which is designed for beginners. So you don't need to spend too much time to learn how to get started when compared with other
professional softwares. In the Mora 10, you can easily add, cuts and edits. There are lots of transitions
and music to choose from. One of the great feature is Audio Ducking. Is only one click to
quickly feed the music so your dialogue stands out. I often get asked what
editing software do you use. The Mora 10 came with Motion Tracking, you can easily track any
moving objects in your scene in just one click. Here, I'm using the function to put text next to the moving A380. Often I shoot from a
few different cameras, which all have slightly different colours. The Mora 10 can easily
fix the colour variations with one click to match colour. The Mora 10 also allows me
to do some advanced editing such as Key Framing. Thanks to the editable presets to make this the easiest key
framing experience around. Simply apply one click presets for the easier key frame experience or end to make freely. Guys, the download link
is in the description, and you can try Filmora
for free before buy it. Well, the A380 was already in
great decline before COVID. The smaller 787 and A350
new generation aircraft provided much greater flexibility and less risk for airline operations. - [Ian] Unfortunately,
it was a wrong aircraft at the wrong time. They were in a contest with Boeing. They wanted to be different to Boeing, but Boeing basically went
long and then was 787, and Airbus went less range, more seats and gambled incorrectly. And they've lost. - [Michael] It often was the
first topic of discussion in the early two thousands. When you met with the teams from either of those manufacturers, what do you think? And the 787 versus A380 story, we knew there was always more demand for units at the 787
and less for the A380, but it is a shame to see
such an incredible aircraft falling out of favour and having what potential
looks like a limited life. - Clearly the improvement
on the very efficient twins, the large white body
twins in particular A350, but now also A330 somehow when took some of the benefits A380 offered at the point in time away, and therefore probably
offers more flexibility at very attractive economic
terms to the customers. (upbeat music) - I invited A380 pilot
and the A380 engineer to talk about what is it like to fly and work on the A380. - My name's Andrew Barsby of
Airbus A380 training captain. I have 11,300 hours total time of which I have just under 5,000 hours on the Airbus A380. Having flown the A380 and
the A320 in comparison, There was very, I found
very little difference in the handling characteristics
of the aircraft. One of the biggest comparisons is the one thing that
I like about the A380 is the less paper cockpit environment. There was less manual, less paper manuals and paper
checklist to go through because Airbus have integrated
a lot of their technologies into the avionics suite of the A380. From a reliability point of view, the A380 is very reliable, very safe aircraft. I really had any issues
while flowing the aircraft over six years. I recall once when I had
a go around on the A380 on alone flight, we selected the full power, which was the procedure at the time, and it has a massive amount of power. It has well in excessive what's required for a go around. (Engine sound) So Airbus have now put
a technology on board that limits the amount of power
necessary for a go around. One of my fondest memories of the A380 is knowing that it's a fast
aircraft and it gets up high. So you get airborne out of an airport and you will see an aircraft that is, you know is going to the
same destination as you is getting up high and fast and racing that traffic
and beating at home. That's one of my fondest memories. (upbeat music) - Hi, my name is Rizwan Baig, I'm a structures engineer on A380. And I have worked on this aircraft for a little more than seven years till these aircraft were grounded. I've spent seven and a half
years working on this aircraft, taking care of it, making it safe for the passengers
and making it good to fly. I've done extensive
checks on this aircraft, spent a lot of time working on it, and it's really sad to
see it going like that. I hope the pandemic gets over very soon and we get our hands
back on this aircraft. It's a very safe aircraft and should be flying
at least 10 more years. It has a very good service life. Some of you might remember
the incident which happened with AirFrance and they had
their engine number four blown out somewhere over North Atlantic and the other airlines
which were operating A380, they went on an extensive
inspection programme for this engine type. Then we had to remove the fan and we had to inspect this fan blade hub so that there are no
cracks or no discrepancies. And just to prevent these kinds of things to happen again in the future. That was one of the great things that I learned during my career. And it was a great experience for me. - Personally I love the quietness and the spaciousness inside the A380. Even the economy class on the A380 is far more spacious
than many other planes. Because of the enormous room the A380 offer the first and business class stands out. And there are lots of
great unique products only found on the A380. (upbeat music) - One thing about the A380 is that when it gets onto an airport, it has a presence on that airport. I've had numerous times where
I've flown into airports all over the world where I'm flying over the
airport perimeter fence, coming in for landing
and you see cars stop and people taking photos. And it is an aircraft that stops traffic. Plane spotters will travel all over just to see this aircraft. I've heard of people actually
flying from different cities to capital cities, just so they can be a
passenger on the A380. (upbeat music) - Since its entry into service, the A380 has carried almost
250 million passengers. Before COVID, an A380 takes off and lands around the world every few minutes. The A380 fleets marks
over 300 flights per day. Operate on more than 120 routes and 60 destinations in the world. (upbeat music) In just a few months, the fortune of A380 has
changed drastically. The A380 now became an obsolete aeroplane that no airlines want to talk about it because of the very low
passenger demand right now. With all the uncertainty ahead, airline don't even know
the A380 will be used in the future. (upbeat music) - AirFrance is the first airline to announce the complete
retirement of the A380 fleets. Their A380 has an outdated products. So the company decided not to
spend money to refurbish it and just to retire it. On the other hand, Qantas has a few A380
recently went through complete cabinet refurbishment, and then they flew straight into the California deserts of Victorville for longterm storage. The Lufthansa CEO is very
uncertain about the A380 future. He think the largest
plane in Lufthansa fleet will be the 747-8. The Etihad has CEO Tony Douglas said, "I'm not trying to rule out the A380. It will bring my heart even
more to do so at this stage, but in the same way the 747
has been finally retired pretty much everywhere I think we are probably going to see now an acceleration of the
same with a global A380 fleet." (upbeat music) Asiana from South Korea has
operated a few joy flights of A380 over Korea that
helps to keep the pilots and the fleets recency. (upbeat music) ANA from Japan is the last carrier to receive their A380. They have painted three of their A380 into flying whole new livery,
all very, very striking. And they believe the A380 will continue to play a dominant role between Japan and Hawaii
on the leisure flights. (upbeat music) A few other airlines are
still currently reviewing their A380 operation and haven't spoke about their
future of the A380 fleets, such as Singapore airlines, Thai Airways and Korean Air. (engine sound) The biggest A380 operator is Emirates. They accounted for almost
half of all the A380 produced in the world. We've 115 currently into fleets and eight more yet to be delivered. Currently Emirates are
still flying the A380, to a handful of destination
like London, Paris, Cairo, Wuhan and Moscow. (upbeat music) - COVID destroyed the
Emirates hub strategy that funnelling millions of
passenger furries hop in Dubai. And then on to destinations
around the world. There is simply very little
connectivity right now with border closures and
strict quarantine rules. It is not the short-haul but the long-haul flying
that are effected mostly. And the A380 of course, is a primarily a long-haul aeroplane. (upbeat music) The open question remains what Emirates would do with all the A380s. They're still even eight or nine A380s hasn't been delivered. - [Michael] On the future of the A380, like all aircraft decisions that comes down to ownership costs, fuel costs, maintenance
costs, and fit to market. As ownership costs reduces any aircraft could
potentially have a home. However, I'm not that
optimistic about the A380 going forward, because of market fit and these other cost issues. - According to the Quantas
airlines, CEO Alan Joyce, he said, "The operating costs on two 787 is still less than
operating one single A380." Etihad airways CEO Tony Douglas said, "The seven 87 Dreamliner
is massively, massively more efficient per seat
kilometre than the A380. And everybody knows that. So we are heartbroken to
see our A380s parked up." (upbeat music) The CEO of Qatar airways, Akbar Al Baker has spoken out he's airline
plans for his A380s. "I don't think that the A380 will get back into the
skies in short term, the growth rates will have
to be the growth rates we achieved in 2019 for
us to consider the A380. We don't think that we're
going to operate our A380s for at least the next couple of years. We recently benchmarked
the A380 against A350 on many routes and the
results were astonishing. We found that on the
typical one-way flights, the A350 save the minimum
of 16 tonnes of Co2 per block hour, compared to the A380 . Analysis has also found that A380 admit to over 80% more
carbon dioxide per block hour than the A350 on each of these routes. Sustainable fuel efficient fleets will be key to not only
surviving this current crisis, but also essential to the
future success of airlines. (upbeat music) There's no doubt the A380 is a phenomenal feat of engineering. It is twice as much as a blue whale, and also just as long as a
football pitch, yet it flies, but the facts speak for itself. The A380 has not been a success in the broader sense of the world. In fact, the unit costs
is much higher on the A380 than the twin engine aircraft. (upbeat music) My personal prediction
is that more than half of the world A380 fleets
would not come back. Airlines are not short
of planes right now. They will only use smaller
and more efficient plane because of the lower demand. So most of the A380s will be right off because of Corona virus from
the airlines balance sheets, just like the supersonic Concorde. When the Concorde retired in 2003, we took a step back in terms of speed. It will be sad to see
when the A380 retire. There'll be never a plane as
big as the A380 in the sky. (upbeat music) The A380 will always be remembered
as a great whisper giants that offer incredible
comfort to the passengers. But it also prove that it is profits that really drives an airliner to fly. The unforgiving corona virus, unfortunately delivered
the final blow to A380. (upbeat music) - I really enjoyed working
on this particular aircraft. It's huge size and safety wise. It's one of the safest aircraft to fly on. (upbeat music) - The biggest commercial
airliner that we'll ever fly. There won't be anything
bigger than the A380. Was privileged to fly it. It was an honour to fly it. And hopefully one day in the future, we'll get to fly it again. (upbeat music) (engine sound)
