Originally Posted by
skeggman
A380 is not now and has never been profitable for EK. For them it was, and still is, all about image.
I am ex EK, not a pilot, but a VP in IT. I was emailed every week the loads of all aircraft outbound from DXB. For an A380 to break even, it had to have 82% loads, most were around 77% with quite a few less than 60%.
I flew many times in business class where out of the 76 seats available, only 10 or so were occupied.
Curious - Is the 82% passenger load factor figure an aggregate across all A380 routes on an annual basis? I would think that an A380 on a DXB - JED flight would have a different load factor break-even than DXB - LHR. Also it must surely be greatly dependent on how many bums are on the fancy seats upstairs?