Airbus A380 planes keep breaking down

For airlines using the twin-deck superjumbo — launched 20 years ago — large-capacity alternatives are scarce, write Angus Whitley and Danny Lee from Sydney

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he world’s largest commercial passenger jet, the Airbus SE A380, enjoyed an unexpected resurgence hauling full loads of passengers when global travel rebounded after the pandemic.

But keeping the ageing superjumbo safely airborne is becoming an increasingly expensive headache for airlines.

Two decades after its maiden flight, regulatory bulletins ordering repairs, inspections or replacement parts for the massive four-engined plane are piling up. While some are procedural, such as a demand for timely equipment checks, others are more serious.

Leaking escape slides, cracked seals and a ruptured landing-gear axle feature among 95 airworthiness directives for the A380 listed by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency since January 2020.

That's about double the number of directives for large Boeing Co aircraft in the same period.

With newer, more fuel-efficient jets in short supply, airlines committed to the twin-deck A380 have little choice but to keep flying it. In its youth, the A380 was a triumph of international collaboration, with 4 million parts made by 1,500 companies worldwide. Now, in old age, the aircraft's complexity is testing aviation's fractured supply chains in the post-Covid era.

“The A380 is a complex aeroplane whose scale does make it more demanding to maintain compared to other aircraft,” the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) said in a statement. “It is very important for safety that there is no stigma attached to publishing an airworthiness directive — safety must come first.”

The agency said such directives, which mandate actions to make an aircraft safe, “can vary hugely in scope and urgency.” The volume of airworthiness directives for different planes “is not a good basis for comparison,’ Easa said.

STRANDED PASSENGERS