Air France Grounds Airbus A380s and KLM Boeing 747s

Air France

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Adapting to the quickly changing situation on the air travel market due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, Air France-KLM Group has announced implementing major flight reductions, FlightGlobal reports.

Home countries of both KLM and Air France have not imposed border controls and air traffic is still allowed to and out of both the Netherlands and France. However, travel restrictions being introduced all across Europe at the speed of light are forcing the carriers to cut their capacity.

According to the airline group, as for now the reduction is expected to last for two months but Air France and KLM will continue monitoring the existing situation to take further measures if necessary.

Therefore, as a direct consequence of unprecedented decrease in demand and capacity cuts, Air France will ground its Airbus A380s while KLM will stop services of its Boeing 747 fleet.

These are the aircraft carrying the largest number of passengers. Considering the fact that air travel has been disrupted, operations of the widebody aircraft worldwide are highly limited to reduce airlines’ costs.

Air France announced about the beginning of its Airbus A380 fleet retirement yet in 2019. The first out of 10 superjubo planes was retired in November, 2019. According to the initial plan, the flag carrier of France scheduled the phase-out of its A380 fleet to be completed by 2022.

Now it is difficult to predict how many planes will return to their service. The impact of the coronavirus and economic downgrade are yet to be determined.