"Qantas' proud flagship, the double-decker Airbus A380, has just made its last international flight for at least the next three years – and there's an increasingly good chance that not all of the red-tailed superjumbos will return to the skies."
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"All twelve A380s will remain grounded until at least the middle of 2023 pending the recovery of demand for air travel in the post-pandemic world."
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"With Qantas forecasting its international network to reach only 50% of its pre-pandemic capacity during the 2021-2022 financial year, Joyce said the A380s "don’t have any use during this period of time... the A380s have to remain on the ground for at least three years until we see those international volumes brought back."
Qantas predicts that international flights are "unlikely to restart before July 2021," with the exception of country-specific travel bubbles to the likes of New Zealand and Singapore – and those flights would be led by the smaller Boeing 787 and Airbus A330 jets "to establish the network as fast as possible."
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