Etihad Airways Airbus A380 aircraft was spotted en route to aircraft storage at Teruel Airport (TEV) in Spain on June 23, 2021.
Etihad Airways Airbus A380 aircraft, registered as A6-APH, is conducting its last operation EY9124 from Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH), United Arab Emirates, to aircraft storage at Teruel Airport (TEV), Spain. The Abu Dhabi-based Super Jumbo is scheduled to make its last touchdown at GMT 2:06 PM.
An A380 from Etihad Airways is en route to @TeruelAirport to be stored. Last commercial flight for this aircraft (A6-APH) was in March 2020.https://t.co/ZciM9kOqbv pic.twitter.com/c8XblBZueL
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) June 23, 2021
The last commercial operation for this Airbus A380 aircraft was in March 2020, as per Flightradar24.com data. The double-decker is five years old.
Etihad had a total of 10 Airbus A380s in its fleet. However, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the airline decided to retire its double-deckers “indefinitely” due to the operational inefficiency, as the Gulf carrier races to become a smaller and more streamlined “boutique” airline.
Earlier in April 2021, during the World Aviation Festival, Etihad Airways CEO Tony Douglas said the 10 A380s were “a wonderful product, but they are no longer commercially sustainable”.
“We had got far too diversified when it came to fleet types to be operationally efficient,” Douglas explained, adding that the airline was focused on the operative model heavily built around the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350-1000 XWB fleets.
Currently, Etihad Airways has a total of 93 aircraft in its fleet, according to the Planespotters.net data. The largest part of the airline’s fleet consists of 39 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Adding to that, Etihad operates 24 Boeing 777s, 19 Airbus A320s, 10 Airbus A321s, and one Airbus A350XWB.
