An interesting article in TheJournal.ie about why Emirates won’t be serving Dublin with the Airbus A380 was brought to my attention this morning. Instead of switching the services to the Airbus A380, they are looking towards a third daily Boeing 777 service.
One of my friends expressed surprise that Dublin does not have Airbus A380 service. His comment was, ‘It’s the step to becoming an “important” airport.’ Is this comment actually true?
Airbus A380 and Prestige
A quick online search shows the definition of prestige to be, “widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality.” So, the argument is that Dublin would be looked upon as a higher quality or better airport if it had Airbus A380 service.
According to Routes Online, there are sixty airports served by the A380 as of Quarter 4 of 2017. Some of the more unusual ones are Abidjan, Brisbane, Birmingham, Casablanca, Mauritius, Nice, Perth, Prague and Vienna.
Air France seasonally serve Port Bouet Airport in Abidjan, a city of over 4 million people in the West African country Côte d’Ivoire. While I am sure this is great for the airport, it is hardly something that will make me book a ticket to fly there.
Many of the 60 airports that are served by the aircraft are solely operated by Emirates. As the aircraft is the cornerstone of the airline’s business plan this is not surprising.
Overall Thoughts
Personally, I don’t see widespread admiration of an airport just because it has Airbus A380 service. From a business perspective, I am more impressed with constantly increasing passengers numbers more than anything else.
As a passenger, the important things to me are ease of use. Getting through security screening quickly and arriving airside into pleasant surroundings with a range of things to do is far more important to me than whether the airport is served by the largest passenger aircraft flying.
Prestige is important for the marketing people and to get an airline on the local news, but I don’t think it is that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. Not to take anything from the good people of Abidjan, but who cares that the Airbus A380 operates there?
What is your take on my friend’s comments? Is he right? Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Images via Air France and Thai Airways.
