If we were to judge the vitality of an airline to expand its fleet or at least to renew it, we cannot say that Air France has been reassuring in recent years. Since the 2013 order for 28 A350s and 25 B787s, which were initially to be shared between the two airlines before reason prevailed, there has been nothing to show for it. That was until this week and the announcement of an order for Airbus A220s to replace the A318s and A319s.
The inevitable renewal of the medium-haul fleet
This is a firm order for 60 A220-300s, with 30 options and 30 acquisition rights. The aircraft will be delivered starting in September 2021.
We can only be delighted with this announcement, for the airline as well as for the passenger. For Air France, this means a 10% lower cost per seat, with a fuel consumption of around 2 liters per 100 km per passenger and lower carbon emissions. While small aircraft generally have higher costs per passenger than large ones, the A220 competes with a “big” A321 Neo. As for the passenger, having flown the A220 on Swiss, we can confirm that the gain in comfort is phenomenal.
The A220, this Airbus from Canada
Never heard of the A220? It’s normal, it only has the name of Airbus. This is actually the excellent C-Series from Canada’s Bombardier, which was renamed the A220 by Airbus after the European aircraft manufacturer took the program under its wing in 2018 with a 51% stake (in the C-Series program, not in Bombardier!).
Why the A220?
As we said: more efficient and more comfortable than the A318 or A319. But why not A320Neo, also more efficient? Because not only does the A320Neo fit in the upper range in terms of size, precisely the one the A320 occupies today, but it would obviously be better suited to routes of more than 3,000 kilometers, which are very rare in the Air France medium-haul network. This argument should be taken with a grain of salt when one considers that Lufthansa Group, with a comparable network, has ordered 101 A320Neo (and 48 A321Neo). Knowing that Swiss operates A220s, it is easy to understand that the argument is biased: the two aircraft are more complementary than competitive.
The main advantage of the A220 for Air France is that it is much cheaper to buy, and we will see in the following lines that this is the real issue for Air France, and not only on the short/medium haul: it does not have the finances for its ambitions.
60 or 90 A220s ? Isn’t that a bit much?
Where the operation raises questions is in the figures. 60 firm orders and 30 options make a potential of 90 aircraft!
Today, Air France has 14 A318 and 33 A319 aircraft. In other words, the figures don’t match because there will be a minimum of 13 excess aircrafts and a maximum of 43.
What do these extra aircrafts mean? Several possibilities:
1°) Air France intends to open new routes and extend its medium-haul network with this more competitive aircraft, which would enable it to be profitable on routes it does not dare venture onto today.
2°) Some of these aircraft will end up at KLM. We don’t really believe it. Even not at all.
3°) Some of the A220s will replace aging A320s and A321s whose replacement will come up quickly due to the advanced age of some of them, with a large part of the fleet reaching 20 years old in the next few years. An option that leaves the door open to two possibilities:
– Air France is replacing some A320/A321s with A220s in order to have on a given route aircraft with less capacity but with more frequencies to better meet customers’ needs. But this means, logically, the closure of some lines.
– Air France is maintaining its network but reducing capacity on a large number of routes.
In our opinion it is this last option that will prevail: the A320/321s will be replaced “by the bottom” in terms of capacity and only some will be replaced by their “Neo” version. As much to say that it does not incite to enthusiasm on the ambition of the airline but can it do otherwise? Its finances are not good and it does not have the means to achieve its ambitions, continuing to struggle to restore its margins while Lufthansa Group and IAG (British/Iberia) have accumulated cash over the last few years which allows them to invest serenely.
RIP A380
Another announcement of the week is the expected withdrawal of the A380 from the Air France fleet. And here we applaud with both hands!
I find it hard to understand why anyone would be sad about the news.
The A380 was not made for the business model of airlines like Air France, Lufthansa or British Airways. Either you have 50 or more A380s or you don’t! You only have to look at the problems it posed as soon as it had to be immobilized for a breakdown, because on small fleets of 10 aircraft, if one is broken down, it is rare to have a “free” one on hand to replace it at a moment’s notice, and given its size, you need two smaller aircrafts! On the other hand, when you have 68 B777s like Air France, you have more room to maneuver when one fails. When you add to that the recurrent reliability problems on the A380…
And from the passenger’s point of view, the A380 has long since become the dream of those who only travel a little. The European airlines, including Air France, did not want to turn it into a flagship like Emirates, Qatar or Singapore Airlines. Moral of the story is that the Air France A380s have an outdated cabin, especially in the “front” classes, the ones that welcome high-contribution passengers, who today prefer a B777 that may be noisier but has a much more premium cabin. The silence and comfort of the A380 have been matched and even surpassed by the B787, then the A350 and tomorrow the B777X. The only thing left is his size.
Renewal or attrition?
The European airlines played the European solidarity card by buying a few examples of an aircraft they did not need, did not make it a flagship and in the end paid a rather heavy bill. It is time for this to stop.
The question of its replacement will therefore arise at the same time as that of certain B777-200s which are beginning to show their age. There is talk of the A350-1000, the A330Neo and, from our point of view, the question of the B777-8 and B777-9 cannot be avoided.
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A220, A320/321 replacement, long-haul fleet strategy. So many subjects on which it will be necessary to decide quickly without necessarily having the means to pursue several goals at the same time.
Photo : A318 Air France by Tupungato via Shutterstock
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