This should make up for the lack of a KE 380 in ATL.

Looks to be effective for the Summer 2019 schedule on AF 689/688

https://thepointsguy.com/news/air-franc ... ium=social

Well KE uses a 748 so not exactly slumming it. ATL went from having no jumbos at all to having both in a matter of months. DL may not be flying them anymore but looks like the jumbos are making a return to Atlanta.

About time, they've been hinting to this for a few years now. I wonder which route they will take this frame from. SFO ? Second JFK ?

neomax wrote:

Well KE uses a 748 so not exactly slumming it. ATL went from having no jumbos at all to having both in a matter of months. DL may not be flying them anymore but looks like the jumbos are making a return to Atlanta.

Not true! ATL still have many cargo 747's operating daily.

Has the A380 gate been added to Concourse F yet?

FromCDGtoSYD wrote:

About time, they've been hinting to this for a few years now. I wonder which route they will take this frame from. SFO ? Second JFK ?

Looks to be SFO. Doing a dummy booking on Google Flights on 3/31 (the date the A380 starts ATL) shows both SFO-CDG flights as 777's.

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

B747forever wrote:

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

For the SFO pax this is a good thing because now they will have a better Affaires hard product. The A380 J seats are angled lie flat in a 2-2-2 configuration.

Yes, an A380-capable gate on F was opened for use in December 2017. There was a request in March 2018 for funding to make another F gate A380 capable but not sure what happened with that since by then AF and KE ceased regular A380 service (if AF ever had it at all besides one-offs). Looks like current service is 2 daily on DL (764, 333) and 2 daily on AF (both 77W). Is 380 replacing one of the 77W frequencies? Or will other flights adjust so capacity increase is more modest?

B747forever wrote:

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

While SFO may have more OD - you have to remember AF competes with UA @ SFO & DY OAK-CDG, so perhaps the capacity of the 380 was too much. AF/DL own the ATL-CDG route.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

B747forever wrote:

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

While SFO may have more OD - you have to remember AF competes with UA @ SFO & DY OAK-CDG, so perhaps the capacity of the 380 was too much. AF/DL own the ATL-CDG route.

Add French Bee (BF) to that list, flying ORY-SFO-PPT.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

FromCDGtoSYD wrote:

About time, they've been hinting to this for a few years now. I wonder which route they will take this frame from. SFO ? Second JFK ?

Looks to be SFO. Doing a dummy booking on Google Flights on 3/31 (the date the A380 starts ATL) shows both SFO-CDG flights as 777's.

It's not coming from SFO. If you book later (I chose mid-June), the 380 operates the 15:05 departure. The 20:30 is listed as a 77W (outbound flights from SFO).

A Jun 30 and Jul 14 time frame booking out of ATL shows 8:15 PM (screen shot in the article) flight on a 77W on delta.com but on AF's site it's shows A380. So guess they are getting it from another route just not SFO long term?

"From that point, Air France will run two daily nonstop flights between Atlanta and Paris, complementing Delta Air Lines’ two nonstops on the same route"

I thought AF had been 2 x Daily at ATL for a while.

VTORD wrote:

A Jun 30 and Jul 14 time frame booking out of ATL shows 8:15 PM (screen shot in the article) flight on a 77W on delta.com but on AF's site it's shows A380. So guess they are getting it from another route just not SFO long term?

"From that point, Air France will run two daily nonstop flights between Atlanta and Paris, complementing Delta Air Lines’ two nonstops on the same route"

I thought AF had been 2 x Daily at ATL for a while.

I think so, there is an AF 77W that lands around 2-2:30 every afternoon. It has been there for a number of years. The A380 flight number is for after 5pm.

EvanWSFO wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

FromCDGtoSYD wrote:

About time, they've been hinting to this for a few years now. I wonder which route they will take this frame from. SFO ? Second JFK ?

Looks to be SFO. Doing a dummy booking on Google Flights on 3/31 (the date the A380 starts ATL) shows both SFO-CDG flights as 777's.

It's not coming from SFO. If you book later (I chose mid-June), the 380 operates the 15:05 departure. The 20:30 is listed as a 77W (outbound flights from SFO).

Initially it does appear it is coming from SFO. What’s interesting is that I did a dummy booking for June 19th and all of the current routes getting the AF A380 listed in OP’s link still have them showing + the new ATL flight on Google flights. Wonder if AF is still optimizing schedules for mid summer and we’ll see more changes coming?

B747forever wrote:

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

Hub to hub is exactly where a high capacity plane should be

Bobloblaw wrote:

B747forever wrote:

Interesting that AF will remove the A380 from a high OD route (SFO) and put it on a hub to hub route with mainly connecting passengers (ATL). I doubt it is the OD traffic on CDG-ATL that drives this change.

Hub to hub is exactly where a high capacity plane should be

Exactly so ATL and JFK are best although JFK also has plenty of OD. Other Skyteam hubs are not so obvious: to Seoul they would compete with KE’s much better 380 configuration, maybe China could work. Mexico does not seem to have worked so well, the critical size has not been reached yet. And definitely the other Skyteam members seem just too small to allow such volumes.

This is a hub to hub route as others have stated. O&D is just gravy. Here's hoping Korean brings the A380 back. O&D alone between the two could fill it. Though the 748 goes out and comes in full