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While some airlines are phasing out their Airbus A380s, Qantas is not only keeping its A380 fleet – it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishing the big four-engine planes, almost doubling the number of premium economy class seats.

The head of Qantas’ Boeing 787 program, Peter O’Donohue, told the TravelManagers annual national conference in Perth on Friday that Qantas is retrofitting its flagship A380s. The premium economy seat total will rise from 35 to 62. On the A380, the whole upper deck will consist of business class and premium economy class seating.

O’Donohue said there were no plans to add more premium economy seats on the airline’s B787-9s, despite agents reporting growing demand for the seats. That wouldn’t work for the B787 but with the A380 it was a different story, O’Donohue said.

Asked if Qantas was phasing out the A380, he said: “No, not in the short term.”

Qantas seems to be flying against the tide on A380s. Airbus will end production of the A380 in 2021. Air France has announced it will retire all of its A380s by the end of 2022, Lufthansa is on a similar trajectory and Qatar Airways plans to retire its A380s as each plane reaches 10 years of age. Singapore Airlines – the world’s biggest A380 customer after Emirates – views it similarly. The Singaporean carrier has already retired five of its A380s when they reached 10 years old – and at least two of those are currently being scrapped. See: Airbus on endless roll, helped by BA and Air France

The A380 is disliked by airline accountants, who view its four engines as two too many. But customers love it – and they have also developed a growing taste for premium economy.

Qantas 787 chief Peter O’Donohue at the TravelManagers conference

O’Donohue, who in his 40 years at Qantas has carried out many roles, including acceptance of new aircraft from Airbus for the Qantas Group, admitted a certain emotional attachment to the A380, having spent four years in Toulouse in connection with the plane.

His summation: “We are still investing millions in them – in the short term. It’s still a great aeroplane and it does what we need – and we don’t have anything to replace it with at the moment. While that is the case, we will continue to fly it and we are investing in new product.”

The only replacement for the A380 currently are various versions of the Boeing twin-engine 777, but Qantas doesn’t have any of those.

O’Donohue joined Qantas in 1979 as an apprentice aircraft maintenance engineer, back in the days when the airline was still flying the Boeing 707.

More recently, he headed the 787 entry into service program, overseeing a team of more than 200 Qantas staff working on the specification and delivery of the airline’s new Dreamliner fleet, which operates the flagship nonstop route between Perth and London.

Written by Peter Needham