Qatar Airways will fly 54% fewer Airbus A380 superjumbos out of Doha this November than last year, after a war-driven grounding pulled all eight jets from the skies for two months.
Qatar Airways plans to operate 90 Airbus A380 flights from Doha in November, a 54% drop from a year earlier, after a war in Iran grounded its entire superjumbo fleet for two months.
The Gulf carrier flew six to seven daily A380 departures last November. This November, it plans just three a day, according to flight-schedule data reported by aviation trade outlet Simple Flying — a total of 90 flights, down from 194 a year ago.
The reduction traces back to Feb. 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel struck Iranian territory, and Iran retaliated, igniting a war that closed regional airspace and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to analyses from law firms Morgan Lewis and White & Case. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply has been cut off from international markets because of the conflict, and jet fuel prices surged more than 120% after the conflict began, peaking at $1,838 a metric ton in early April, Morgan Lewis found.
A temporary U.S.-Iran ceasefire, announced April 8, has held despite sporadic violations, and the two countries signed a memorandum on June 17 extending it 60 days, according to EASA. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has continued to advise against flights over Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese airspace and urged caution over Qatar and several other Gulf states; that bulletin’s validity was extended through July 8, the most recent update available.
Qatar Airways grounded all eight of its A380s in mid-April and kept them parked in Doha through mid-June, canceling more than 12,000 flights across its network in April and May. Airlines worldwide removed nearly 2 million seats from their May schedules alone as the conflict disrupted regional flying, according to Morgan Lewis. Passengers booked on Qatar Airways flights affected by the disruption between Feb. 28 and June 15 were offered free date changes through Oct. 31 or full refunds.
Qatar Airways was not alone in scaling back its double-decker operations. Emirates, which flies 116 A380s, and Etihad, which flies nine, also cut back during the crisis without grounding their entire fleets; Emirates had 39 of its 116 jets parked, and Etihad had three of its nine grounded at the peak of the disruption, according to a report from Italian aviation outlet The Flight Club, which could not be independently corroborated. Combined, the three Gulf carriers operate about 133 of the roughly 190 A380s in active service worldwide, and global A380 utilization across all operators fell 7% in April and May, the outlet reported. Qatar Airways’ own A380 departures for all of 2026 are running 43% below 2025 levels, according to late-April data, which put the carrier’s full-year total at about 920 planned departures, compared with 1,620 actual departures in 2025.
Six of the eight jets have since returned to commercial service, according to Flightradar24 data. A7-APG resumed flying June 16 on the Doha-London route, and A7-APH and A7-API returned the same day on Doha-Bangkok service. A7-APF followed on June 18, also to Bangkok. A7-APE returned June 28, flying to Paris, and A7-APD came back July 1 on the Bangkok route.
Two aircraft remain parked in Doha with no confirmed return date. A7-APC last flew commercially Feb. 28, from Doha to London, before being moved to Teruel, Spain, for temporary storage on March 20 and flown back to Doha on April 1. A7-APJ’s last scheduled flight was also Feb. 28, from Doha to Paris; it was parked at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport until March 28 before returning to Doha, where it has remained grounded since.
The smaller fleet means a smaller network. Qatar Airways had been due to resume A380 service this winter to Guangzhou, Singapore and Sydney, but all three routes have been dropped. The superjumbo hasn’t flown to Guangzhou since 2020, and it last served Singapore and Sydney in March, shortly before the war began.
That leaves three A380 destinations for the winter: Bangkok, Paris and London. Frequencies on the two European routes, currently flown twice daily, will be cut to once a day starting Oct. 25, when carriers switch to winter schedules. Bangkok service will drop from twice daily to once daily between Oct. 25 and Nov. 30, before returning to two flights a day on Dec. 1.
Simple Flying reported that the winter A380 network probably hasn’t been finalized yet, with further changes likely because two more aircraft have recently returned to service.
Each Qatar Airways A380 seats 517 passengers, with eight first-class suites and 48 business-class seats on the upper deck and 461 economy seats across both decks. Premium seating accounts for about 11% of each jet’s capacity. By comparison, though not a like-for-like measure, British Airways’ A380s, which are currently being retrofitted, will devote 29% of seats to first and business class.
Qatar Airways, a member of the oneworld alliance, is led by Group Chief Executive Officer Hamad Ali Al-Khater, who took over in December. The carrier is one of just 10 airlines still flying the A380, a four-engine, double-deck jet that entered commercial service in 2007 and is no longer in production. Airbus certified the plane to carry up to 853 passengers and gave it a range of 8,000 nautical miles, though Qatar Airways’ configuration seats fewer passengers than that maximum.
Qatar Airways has 10 A380s on its books in total, but two of them, A7-APA and A7-APB, were withdrawn from service during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and are in long-term storage; they will not fly for the airline again. Among the eight active jets, A7-APD was delivered in December 2014 and A7-APE in June 2015. The carrier had considered retiring the A380 fleet early as of 2024 before reversing course, and it launched the aircraft’s first-ever scheduled service to Singapore on Jan. 12 of this year.
The war’s effects have rippled beyond the A380 fleet. American Airlines permanently canceled its Philadelphia-Doha route, which it had suspended when the conflict began, and Qatar Airways plans to launch its own Philadelphia-Doha service at an undetermined future date, part of a broader rebuilding of a network that now spans more than 160 destinations.
Key Takeaways
- Qatar Airways plans 90 Airbus A380 departures from Doha in November, down 54% from 194 a year earlier.
- The cuts follow a war-driven grounding that parked all eight A380s in Doha from mid-April to mid-June.
- A380 flights to Guangzhou, Singapore and Sydney have been dropped for winter; only Bangkok, Paris and London remain.
- Frequencies on the surviving routes will be cut further starting Oct. 25, when winter schedules begin.
- Two aircraft remain grounded in Doha, and further schedule changes are possible as more jets return to service.