I've been saying for a few weeks now that big changes are coming. My crystal ball says by the end of the year Airbus will have announced the shutting down of the A380 line, paying off EK to swap the orders over to the A350. It will be cheaper than losing (apparently) 50 million dollars on every 380 coming out of the hangar. It'll be a face saving measure for STC, who's hung his legacy on the 380. I've always said the 380 is not a recession proof aircraft, and I think EK have taken a step too far in ordering 142 of them. No-one else in the industry has ever been able to see a future for that many Very Large Aircraft, and I think STC's famous quote "we just buy the aircraft, open the doors and passengers just walk on in" is coming back to bite him.
EK is in the middle of a perfect storm of global economic malaise causing a serious downturn in premium travel, at the same time as it's struggling with huge over-capacity.
My crystal ball also sees a complete stop to flight crew recruitment sooner than most expect, along with a stop to upgrades. I've been here long enough to see a few cycles of absolute ludicrous feast (as we have now) to complete famine.
I might be wrong of course. I was wrong once, but that was back in '83 at an Anita Bryant concert..went into the lady's loo instead of the bloke's.
