British Airways A380s in 2023: Routes, Fleet &

Retirement Plans
knaviation.net/british-airways-a380

Keishi Nukina January 2, 2023

With Air France having retired the Airbus A380, British Airways and Lufthansa are the
two remaining operators of the type in Europe. The latter, however, only plans on
bringing a handful of its Superjumbos out of storage. That leaves British Airways your
best bet when it comes to flying the A380 on a European airline.

Continue reading to find out what routes British Airways uses the A380 on, as well as how
many A380s the airline operates and what seat configuration they are in.

British Airways A380 Routes

Unsurprisingly, all British Airways A380s are based at London Heathrow
airport.

From there, with the exception of Dubai and Johannesburg, they operate on popular
routes to the United States. In total, they are expected to regularly serve nine different
destinations in 2023 – some year-round, some during the winter schedule, and some
during the summer schedule.

Routes the British Airways A380 will be seen on regularly in 2023. (Map
generated using Great Circle Mapper)

Routes on which the British Airways A380 can be seen year-round in 2023
include:

Dallas (BA193/BA192, daily)

Dubai (BA109/BA108, daily until Feb 20; BA107/BA106, Tue/Thu/Sun from Mar
26)
Johannesburg (BA57/BA56 and BA55/BA54, 2x daily)
 Miami (BA207/BA206, daily)
San Francisco (BA287/BA286, daily)
Washington D.C. (BA217/BA216, daily)

In addition to the routes above, British Airways will also operate the A380 on flights
BA269/BA268 to and from Los Angeles daily until March 25, 2023. While the flights will
switch to Boeing 777 after that, the A380 might return to Los Angeles again during the
2023 winter schedule.

During the summer schedule, the aircraft will also be deployed on flights from London
Heathrow to:

Boston (BA213/BA212, daily from Mar 26)

Chicago (BA297/BA296, daily from May 9)

Between the end of last year and the beginning of 2023, the British Airways A380 could
also be seen on flights from London Heathrow to Doha due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup
having been held in the Qatari capital.

British Airways A380 Fleet

British Airways operates a total of 12 Airbus A380-800 aircraft, which were
delivered to the airline between 2013 and 2016.

Like several other operators of the Superjumbo, British Airways grounded its A380 fleet
in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic brought travel to a halt. That said, it gradually
brought the entire fleet out of storage between November 2021 and April 2022.

As of the time of writing this article, the below British Airways A380 airframes are active:

G-XLEA (MSN 95, delivered in 2013)

G-XLEB (MSN 121, delivered in 2013)
G-XLEC (MSN 124, delivered in 2013)
G-XLED (MSN 144, delivered in 2014)
G-XLEE (MSN 148, delivered in 2014)
G-XLEF (MSN 151, delivered in 2014)
G-XLEG (MSN 161, delivered in 2014)
G-XLEH (MSN 163, delivered in 2014)
G-XLEI (MSN 173, delivered in 2015)
G-XLEJ (MSN 192, delivered in 2015)
G-XLEK (MSN 194, delivered in 2016)
G-XLEL (MSN 215, delivered in 2016)
 British Airways Airbus A380.

British Airways A380 Seat Configuration

All British Airways A380s are equipped with 469 seats in a four-class
configuration. Economy class and business class are split across the two decks while
first class can be found on the main deck and premium economy class on the upper deck.

The main deck is equipped with a total of 257 seats including:

14 in first class (1-2-1 layout)

44 in business class (2-4-2 layout)
199 in economy class (3-4-3 layout)

The upper deck is equipped with a total of 212 seats including:

53 in business class (2-3-2 layout)

55 in premium economy class (2-3-2 layout)
104 in economy class (2-4-2 layout)

First class seats on British Airways’ A380s are “open” – i.e. they do not feature doors.
Like on some other British Airways aircraft, the business class seats alternate between
forward- and backward-facing.

Lastly, it is worth noting that like on other airlines’ A380s, the economy class
configuration is more comfortable on the upper deck where there are only eight seats per
row compared to the main deck’s ten. There is also an extra storage compartment
between the window seats and the wall of the aircraft on the upper deck.

British Airways A380 Retirement Plans

COVID-19 grounded several A380 fleets including the British Airways one and airlines
like Air France retired the Superjumbo completely. While that put the future of British
Airways A380s in question too, luckily, as mentioned earlier, they have all been put back
into service by now. 

In October 2020, while the fleet was grounded, British Airways told North Wales Live
that “the A380 is still a valued part of our fleet and there are currently no plans to retire
them.” The fact that the A380 still has a place in British Airways’ fleet was also confirmed
by The Independent in its March 2021 interview with the airline’s CEO, Sean Doyle. He is
quoted saying that the A380 “is in our plans for the future rebuild of the airline.”

With no known retirement plans for the British Airways A380, the aircraft are
likely to remain in the skies for at least another decade.

Summary
While pre-COVID-19, Lufthansa was the largest operator of the A380 in Europe, the
pandemic changed that. With 12 airframes in service, British Airways owns the top spot
now. In fact, considering that Air France retired the Superjumbos and Lufthansa will only
bring a couple back into service, British Airways will most likely keep the top spot until it
retires the A380s.

British Airways A380s are equipped with 469 seats in four classes and primarily operate
flights from the airline’s hub at London Heathrow airport to major US airports like Dallas
and San Francisco. That said, they also fly to Dubai and Johannesburg.

The good news is that with no announced retirement plans, for the time being, British
Airways’ Airbus A380 will remain a fairly easy aircraft to fly on.