It’s amazing Fly Dubai and Qatar are calling people back, yet Emirates the big shiny one (so they tell us) hasn’t brought any pilots or, crew that were made redundant
Because those airlines aren't calling back pilots to operate an aircraft that is just simply not needed right now given the patchy recovery that's taking place. Large markets like Australia feeding through to Europe, India feeding US and South America feeding the Far East simply just can't sustain an A380 when the loads are so low. Why on earth would EK operate an A380 to Australia for only
15 pax because of government restrictions, carries less freight and burns almost 2.5 times more fuel than a 777? The UAE has banned transiting traffic from India so there goes your pax for the US and most countries have banned entry for people who have been in Brazil and other parts of South America.
The A380 certainly has a place in the EK network, unfortunately just not at the scale where it once was. If (and that's a big if) Australia opens up at the end of this year or beginning of next, be assured the A380 will most certainly be needed.
I know I sound insensitive, but that's just the cold hard reality. The operating economics of the A380 rely on heavy load factors to make it work. But when you have a network that relies on connectivity and countries are still under lockdown, loads are patchy which doesn't work well for the spreadsheet.
But, there are signs of green shoots in recovery. Hopefully they blossom soon.