EK had to back track on the back track.
There was some shameful behaviour by a crew laying over in Auckland yesterday that made the world news. And stories of mass overcrowding at EK HQ while crew were force tested like cattle (slaves the locals call them), all in close proximity, queuing for 3 hours, and allegedly released to fly worldwide ops pending the results which take hours, just to keep the operation going to make MONEY. Damn the consequences!
You can only imagine how that played out in the media - undiagnosed crew fanning out over the entire world network, allegedly. Not well at all. Completely unbelievable, unless you're familiar with the MO at EK, or have worked at Emirates for more than 5 minutes, then it's par for the course.
Either way, shame on Emirates. And rightly deserved that they're now in the sin bin. And likely the 380 won't fly again. Twins only, and only on leaner ops.
The 747 pax version has been given a fresh leash of life as a quasi freighter using the lower deck and empty seats upstairs. The 777-300er pax can be quite impressive in this regard as well. The 380 is about much use as tits on a bull in terms of freighter work, which a very low cargo carrying capacity considering the overheads. Under the current climate it's dead. LH/AF/BA already grounded them. EK is heavily invested with 380s, a willy waving exercising that backfired maybe? More fool on you.
Bye bye a380, you were f'ing ugly, comfy for the pax, a pain in the arse to park and fly behind. Take your bow and go off into the desert gracefully. Long live the almighty Boeing 747.
With the price of oil so low, and the UAE no longer producing it or having mates who can flog the black stuff to them cheap.. And the massively reduced passenger demand/transit/tourism over the next 6-12 months... Emirates is cooked. It's going to take forever to recover amongst the ME3. You might as well get out now.
Last edited by Flying Clog; 23rd Mar 2020 at 18:11.