IN A HANGAR IN TARBES, FRANCE, a team of hard-hatted maintenance technicians looked up at the aircraft towering 73 feet above them, the giant that once held the promise of dominating international air transport-the Airbus A380. The team wasn't there for the airplane's regular maintenance check. They had come to take it apart. Employees of Tarmac Aerosave, one of the world's largest aircraft-recycling companies, they would work for the next six months to disassemble for recycling the world's largest airliner, a four-engine double-decker that was 238.6 feet long with a 262-foot wingspan and an empty weight of more than 600,000 pounds. This A380 had flown for only 10 years, a third of its intended lifespan. It started its career in 2007 with A380 launch customer Singapore Airlines, which began shedding A380s in 2017. Last year, the airline retired five more. When air travel became one of the victims of the 2020 pandemic, A380 retirements began to cascade. (COVID accelerated the retirements of other, older types as well.) Air France retired the last nine of its 10 giants; Lufthansa retired 14. Qatar Airways, once one of the A380's biggest boosters, followed with five. Etihad announced last April that it was grounding its 10 A380s indefinitely in favor of smaller, twin-engine 787s and A350-1000s. The move was part of the airline's pivot from an aggressive, luxury-focused expansion to increased efficiency required by pandemic economics.
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