AF A380 LHR-CDG? Does this make sense

[thewinchester]

This information just sprang up on a bargain posting board I frequent, and to say I was a little shocked by this move was an understatement:

Fly from London Heathrow to Paris by A380 this summer

We have just announced that our Airbus A380 will exceptionally operate on the London-Heathrow airport to Paris-Charles de Gaulle route for the very first time from Saturday, 12th June 2010 until Monday, 30th August 2010.

Air France will be the only airline operating an A380 on short haul flights. Therefore, customers will have a unique opportunity to experience flying on the world's largest aircraft this summer.

London to Paris from only £80 rtn

For this special event, we have launched very attractive fares from just £80* return including all taxes in Economy Class, and from just £280* return including all taxes in the Business Class cabin.

From the looks of things, only J (in Z bucket) / Y (buckets unknown) being sold, which comes in at 529 seats assuming that F is closed off for the route.

Just seems odd that they'd operate such a high pax plane on such a short route - unless they're only doing it at a loss and for the purpose of increasing future customer base through trial of their product & service.

Comments/thoughts?

 

[serfty]

Simple trailing/training/shakedown purposes.

Performing daily short hops will allow then to rotate flight crews far more quickly through the A380 gaining experience more rapidly than on long-haul routes. Every flight, has a take-off and a landing, regardless of the length of the flight - and these are presumably the more aircraft specific parts of the flight.

 

[yohy?!]

AF A380 CDG-LHR Business Class — Trip Reports Forum | Airliners.net

Recent TR on this sector

 

[Siegfried]

I assume from the quote that this is an AF offering. So, perhaps the full load sector (i.e. best yield) is into LHR, and maybe the AF service base is CDG - in which case it would make sense for AF to sell seats on what would otherwise be a deadhead run.

P.S. Sorry if the above doesn't make much sense - It's late in Santiago, and I've been out wining and dining prospective clients.

 

[docjames]

To maximise the number of crew who are typed on the a/c it is important to get a number of cycles hence the short sectors. I presume LHR is one of the diversion airports, also knows how to handle the 380, and it's a busy route, and obviously one they think they can fill seats at a (realtively) economic price.


But the main reason is crew training.

 

[futaris]

A380 - lhr-cdg - FlyerTalk Forums

So you could theoretically fly AKL-SYD-SIN-LHR-CDG and fly on Emirates, Singapore Airlines, QANTAS and Air France. Any other (shorter) way to fly A380 on all four operators?

 

[dajop]

So you could theoretically fly AKL-SYD-SIN-LHR-CDG and fly on Emirates, Singapore Airlines, QANTAS and Air France. Any other (shorter) way to fly A380 on all four operators?

Trouble is there are five operators ..... you'd have to do FRA-NRT-SIN-LHR-CDG-DXB....

 

[futaris]

Trouble is there are five operators ..... you'd have to do FRA-NRT-SIN-LHR-CDG-DXB....

That's 19400 mi of flying.

AKL-SYD-SIN-NRT-FRA CDG-LHR is only 14628 mi of flying, with a short FRA-CDG (279mi) on another aircraft or by train, car, etc.

EK QF SQ LH ? AF

 

[flychrisfly]

In addition to crew training on a short sector, AF may have time between longer haul routes. I have no idea what AF's A380 flight schedule is from CDG but if it's anything like Qantas's out of Sydney then the long hauls typically arrive in the morning and don't need to set off again for up to 10 hours. Plenty of time for 2 short hops.

 

[harvyk]

I don't know what CDG parking costs are, but it may be cheaper for AF to have the bird in the air...

It's the reason EK do SYD-AKL, because even if they have low loads it cheaper than having the plane sitting around in SYD for hours on end...

Besides, there will be people who travel that route on other carriers who will now deliberately fly AF just so they can experience the A380.

 

[futaris]

I don't know what CDG parking costs are, but it may be cheaper for AF to have the bird in the air...

If anyone wants to work it out:

http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr/ADP/...f991-publicationtarifs2010versionanglaise.pdf

 

[medhead]

If anyone wants to work it out:

http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr/ADP/...f991-publicationtarifs2010versionanglaise.pdf

So the landing/takeoff fee is 4150 euro, as best I can work out without knowing the noise class. But the variation on noise class is +/- ~500 euro

Parking is 1416 euro base charge plus

At pier 271 euro for 90 minutes max
At remote stand 180 euro per hour (who was complaining about car parking at SYD )
garage parking 64.80 euro per hour

So 10 hours of parking is 3216 euro (ignoring the pier parking), versus to 2x 4150 euro to take off and land while going to LHR. (plus of course landing and take off at LHR). But then the LHR flight to also incur an extra parking base charge and pier charge of 1687 euro (max).

All this is for CDG.

 

[docjames]

Air France: London A380 flight stops jet sitting idle in Paris

Air France is to go ahead with deploying its Airbus A380 aircraft on the Paris-London sector, in order to avoid parking the aircraft unused for long periods in France.