Flight International – 6 August 2019

THIS WEEK

ightglobal.com 6-12 August 2019 | Flight International | 9

Southwest

grapples with

Max absence

Cover Story P

A380 programme after the last

planned delivery in 2021.

Smith says Air France-KLM is

under “no pressure” to make an

immediate decision about the su-

perjumbo’s replacement, and has

“plenty of flexibility”.

A new long-haul order could

be combined with a potential re-

placement of older widebodies in

Air France-KLM’s fleet, beyond

the A380.

“Were the right offer to come

in from Boeing or Airbus, we

would look to replace other air-

craft,” Smith says. But he adds:

“We are being very conservative

on capex.”

He insists: “Nine aircraft

would be the maximum to re-

place the A380.”

In June, the airline group dis-

closed that Air France will trans-

fer orders for six 787s to KLM

and in return take commitments

for seven A350s from its sister

carrier, as part of a fleet

optimisation effort.

Cirium’s Fleet Analyzer shows

that Air France has nine 787-9s in

service and another one on order,

alongside orders for 28 A350s, of

which the first is scheduled for

delivery in September.

Simplification of the long-haul

fleet – including retirement of its

A340-300s by 2021 – will help

drive profitability, says Smith.

While Air France is ridding

itself of the largest aircraft in

Airbus’s line-up, it is also taking

one of the smallest after the

group signed for up to 120 A220-

300s as part of its fleet renewal

plan.

The airline group says the com-

mitment comprises 60 firm air-

craft, plus 30 options and 30 ac-

quisition rights. Airbus labels the

60-unit portion of the deal as a

memorandum of understanding.

The aircraft will “gradually

replace” Air France’s A318 and

A319 fleets, beginning with the

first delivery in September 2021,

it says.

“The acquisition of these

brand-new A220-300s aligns per-

fectly with Air France-KLM’s

fleet modernisation and harmoni-

sation strategy,” says Smith.

“This aircraft demonstrates

optimum operational and eco-

nomic efficiency, and enables us

to further improve our environ-

ment footprint thanks to the

A220’s low fuel consumption

and reduced emissions.”

Smith describes the aircraft as

“perfectly adapted” to Air

France’s domestic and European

network. Fleets Analyzer shows

Air France has 18 A318s and 33

A319s in service.

The order comes 10 months

into the tenure of Smith, who

was a top executive at Air Canada

when in 2016 that airline ordered

45 A220-300s, then built by

Bombardier as the CSeries.

ROBUST PERFORMANCE

Meanwhile, Smith describes the

airline group’s second-quarter

financial performance as

“robust... [despite] the challeng-

ing environment”.

Operating profit increased by

€54 million ($60 million) to

€400 million, while revenue

grew 6.4%, to €7.05 billion.

Air France-KLM says that

while passenger unit revenue

grew at 0.8%, unit cost excluding

currency effects and fuel-cost fluc-

tuations was reduced by 2.3%.

But Smith says that Air France-

KLM must continue “reducing

costs and making our group more

robust in the very competitive

marketplace in Europe”.

Air France-KLM foresees that

its 2019 fuel bill will increase by

€550 million, to €5.5 billion. ■

A

ir France-KLM intends to re-

place the French flag carrier’s

fleet of 10 Airbus A380s with up

to nine long-haul twinjets.

Chief executive Ben Smith said

during a results briefing on 31 July

that the group was in “advanced”

talks with Airbus about ordering

A330-900s or A350-900s and with

Boeing about a possible deal for

787-9s as replacements for the

double-deck type.

Twenty-four hours earlier, the

group disclosed that it would

phase out the A380 by 2022

under an “accelerated” retire-

ment plan. It had previously de-

cided to decommission an initial

three A380s.

The 10 aircraft will be “progres-

sively” retired, and the last will

leave the fleet in 2022, says chief

financial officer Frederic Gagey.

Smith argues that opportunities

for profitable deployment of the

A380 are “limited due to high cost

of operation in addition to chal-

lenges faced in terms of operation-

al performance” of the type,

which is the “poorest” of any air-

craft in its fleet.

He describes the prospect of

having seven A380s as “subopti-

mal” because operation of six

units would require “a mini-

mum” of one spare aircraft.

Furthermore, he says, the air-

line’s A380s would require cabin

refurbishments, which would cost

“upwards of €35 million” ($

million) per aircraft, and 12-year

maintenance checks, which

would bring total expenditure for

each aircraft to €85 million.

“Increasing aircraft mainte-

nance costs as well as necessary

cabin refurbishments to meet cus-

tomer expectations reduce the

economic attractiveness of Air

France’s A380s even further,” says

the carrier. “Keeping this aircraft

in the fleet would involve signifi-

cant costs, while the [A380] pro-

gramme was suspended by Air-

bus earlier in 2019.”

In February, Airbus disclosed

a decision to discontinue the

MODERNISATION MICHAEL GUBISCH LONDON

Air France to ‘accelerate’ fleet renewal

Retirement of A380s brought forward by airline group citing poor performance, while also ordering new A220 twinjets

“The acquisition of

these A220-300s

aligns perfectly with

Air France-KLM’s fleet

modernisation plans”

Ben Smith

Chief executive, Air France-KLM

Former CSeries will replace Airbus

narrowbodies on French domestic routes

Airbus

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