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June 27, 2020 12:45 am

Covid-19 Killed the Era of 'Big' Flying

COVID-19 has shattered the aviation industry, with nations closing their borders and banning all but essential travel. A world where people could hop from country to country is now one where empty planes travel to maintain contractual obligations. Major carriers, including American, IAG, Delta and Lufthansa have all asked for government bailouts. From a report: One airline that will receive a substantial amount of taxpayer cash is Air France-KLM, which will get around $17 billion worth of help. That figure comes with conditions, including that the Franco-Dutch conglomerate cuts its CO2 emissions and buys gear from the France-based Airbus. Airbus is, of course, one of the world's two major aircraft manufacturers, the other being the US-based Boeing. But, even now, it's not clear that any quantity of cash will be enough to see flying return to the levels seen in 2019. Whatever we were used to, in terms of cost, convenience and experience, it's not going to be the same for a while. Just last week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that only 45 percent of travelers asked intended to fly "within a few months of the pandemic subsiding." Perhaps the biggest casualty of COVID-19 so far has been the Airbus A380 and the flying it represented. This "superjumbo" jet, competition for the Boeing 747, was designed to offer mass transit in the skies, to convey huge volumes of people around the world in its double-decker cabin and a potential capacity of more than 850. Work on the A380 began in the early '90s, with the first vessel entering service in 2007, and it's instantly recognizable. Less a plane and more like a bus, it hauls people between major hub airports, where they get a single-aisle craft to their destination. The idea of air travel, back at the A380's genesis, was that you'd fly to, say, JFK, and then get an A380 to Cape Town, Paris or Shanghai. A number of carriers have A380s, but it's become synonymous with Emirates, which has a staggering 115 of the craft in its fleet. But despite the plane's relative youth, launching just over a decade ago, the virus has hastened the A380's demise. Airbus announced last year it would stop manufacturing the plane, and according to Bloomberg, even Emirates, its biggest booster, no longer wants its remaining deliveries.

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