This November 7 at 22:30 (local time) the last commercial flight of China Southern Airlines’ Airbus A380 registration B-6139, under the code CZ 328, will depart between Los Angeles (LAX) and Guangzhou/Baiyuan (CAN), marking the end of that model with the Asian airline.
With this decision, China Southern joins Air France, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways and Hi-Fly, which have also withdrawn their A380s.
After suffering continuing losses because of China’s tough health restrictions, China Southern announced the retirement of its Airbus A380s to optimize its fleet. The first two were retired in late October and early November 2021, with registrations B-6136 (msn 31) and B-6137 (msn 36), which are based in the Mojave Desert, California.
Last Oct. 12, B-6138 made the last flight from Sydney (SYD) and on Nov. 4, B-6140 did the same operating between Amsterdam (AMS) and Guangzhou.
China Southern is the only operator of the Airbus A380 in China. The company had ordered five aircraft in 2005 to cope with high travel demand in the domestic market and the 2008 Olympic Games. However, for several reasons deliveries were delayed and the company’s first super-jumbo arrived in 2011.
By the end of 2012 it had four A380s operating only on busy routes in its domestic network. According to Centre for Aviation (CAPA), in the following years the A380 generated losses by using it on short routes. Its first long-haul destination was Los Angeles (LAX), followed by Sydney (SYD), Melbourne (MEL) and Amsterdam (AMS), which until before the pandemic were the main cities where the A380 was deployed.
However, China Southern continued to operate it within China to destinations such as Chengdu, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Kunming and Beijing, even during the COVID-19 health crisis, being one of the few operators to use it during that period.
The company managed to stabilize A380 profitability in 2015 by interleaving the aircraft’s peak season utilization in the northern and southern hemispheres with Europe and Australia. The new strategy generated profit for them until the pandemic.
In addition to the costly A380 operations, they add to the scheduled Check-D maintenance, which involves a total overhaul of the aircraft, and an upgrade of its cabin configured for 506 seats.
The Chinese carrier has fourteen Airbus A350s configured for 314 passengers and fifteen Boeing 777-300ERs with 368 seats for peak demand routes.
