Malaysia Airlines has decided to put all of its Airbus A380s aircraft on the market. The Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) took up the LinkedIn platform to launch the tender for the sale of six Airbus A380-800s on 15th July 2021.
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The parent of Malaysia Airlines, MAG, has invited the interested buyers to send their bidding by noon of 12th August 2021. The airlines’ company went through restricting earlier this year; the Group Chief Executive Officer Captain Izham Ismail mentioned that the MAG was looking to dispose of its Airbus A380 aircraft after completion of its debt restructuring. The sale of the Airbus fleet from the airlines seems to have been decided following the reason, them not being fit for the company’s future plans.
Trend Across The Globe?
Many of the airlines across the globe are looking to phase out the A380s aircraft from their service, including Air France, Etihad, Qatar, and Air Malaysia, including Thai.BK, which is going through court-approved restructuring.
The aircraft focusing on the new standards of in-flight comfort from the Airbus family has done an excellent job to fulfill its purpose. However, its only relatively niche composition didn’t seem to please the airlines that were focusing on the diverse range of features and not aircraft that was made for a particular purpose. That was the reason why the airlines that were using the Airbus A380s model worldwide in their service had decided to ditch the aircraft; some of the airlines had been looking to sell the variant before the aviation economy crashed with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The A380 variant from the Airbus has been in the market for just about ten years. It seems to have lost its credibility within a decade because of its over-emphasized in-flight comfort undermining other aspects that could have been made a hit among the diverse range of airlines. The Airbus family seeing the futility in the marketing of the aircraft that failed to make a strong impression in the aviation market, decided to pull back the A380s variants from sale in early 2019.
Malaysian Airline’s Airbus Fleet
The six Airbus A380s present in Malaysia Airlines have an aggregate age of approx nine years with a combined 2,924 seat capacity. The A380s variants of the airline’s fleet were all delivered in the span of the year between 2012 and 2013, so the age of the aircraft isn’t much of an issue for their sales. The oldest Airbus A380 aircraft, 9M-MNA, in the airlines was delivered on 29th May 2012; it has made over 28,386 flight hours in more than 2,618 flight cycles in its 9.74 years of service it has been with the airlines. Relatively, the youngest aircraft in the Airbus fleet, 9M-MNF, was delivered to Malaysia Airlines on 28th March 2013. The aircraft has been with the airlines for just 8.72 years and is the least used Airbus A380 variant in the airline’s service with just 23,819 flight hours in 2,277 flight cycles. The six Airbus aircraft which have been brought up for sale are in storage in Kuala Lumpur.
The Malaysia airlines had shown their intention to retire the Airbus A380s in May 2021. Because of the poor second-hand market for the Airbus jetliner, the company had been struggling to find the perfect way to sell the 380s variants. The sale moves to pull out the Airbus double-decker seem to have been inevitable; the economic crisis the Covid-pandemic has brought in the aviation sector worldwide created problematic circumstances for every organization in the sector.
The expected further loss of the aviation industry, around $47.7 billion in 2021, the travel bans globally, and slow return of international travel demand has made airlines take drastic measures to tackle the challenging times until the industry gets back to its normal pace. In such a scenario, the double-decker, long-haul, and fuel-inefficient aircraft like A380, which can carry almost 500, have been deemed to be an adversary in the expedition for the revival of the aviation industry.
The current valuation of these six Airbus A380 aircraft, with age below a decade, was estimated to be around $273.34 million. However, given seeing the lack of interest for the A380 variant of the Airbus family across the globe, it remains to be seen whether Malaysian Airlines will get any serious offers or not.
