Why did I spend sixty Euro on an aluminum luggage tag, my wife asked.
“I’m entitled to my toy,” I said. To myself, I muttered, “It’s not just a luggage tag, it’s made from the skin of the very first Emirates Airbus A380.”
My A380 aircraft skin tag is a memento, memorializing a golden era of super jumbo travel I have never gotten to enjoy.
While the phrase “skin tag” sounds like something out of BLADERUNNER or plastic surgery shows BOTCHED or NIP/TUCK, it is actually a “Limited Edition Original Aircraft Skin Tag.”
The aluminum tag, which you could put on your luggage or use as a key ring, measures 8.5 cm by 4.5 cm. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, by which “Emirates hereby confirms the above referenced item is genuine and was created from the skin of aircraft A6-EDA during her disassembly at DWC (Dubai World Central) airport in 2021.”
The skin tag is from Aviationtag, which has produced tags from the aluminum skin of Boeing 707s, 747s, the Airbus A380, and other aircraft after usable parts have been removed. The company produces tags from retired commercial, military and general aviation aircraft. Aviationtag even sells high-quality 1:200 and 1:400 scale model aircraft with matching skin tag.
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“The material for the Aviationtags is cut from disused aircraft in the aircraft cemeteries of the world and shipped to the Cologne production facility. There, the old aircraft parts are dismantled by hand, cut, punched out, polished and laser engraved. In this upcycling process, aircraft aluminum becomes aviation history, which now lives on as luggage tags or key rings.”
In my box, a certificate told me, “You now own an important piece of Emirates’ history.” If you are an Airbus A380 aficionado, this is actually true. A6-EDA was the first A380 delivered to Emirates in July of 2008, and just the 11th A380 manufactured by Airbus.
If any airline can be said to have used the A380 profitably, it is Emirates. Emirates ultimately purchased 118 A380 Airbus aircraft; nearly half of the 251 planes ultimately delivered. Emirates is really the only operator that made the A380 work at scale, with dozens of planes flying in and out of Dubai Internation (DXB) carrying 500 passengers at time.
A6-EDA was typical. The plane flew 6,319 flights, visited 62 destinations and carried over 2.1 million passengers. Her longest flight was a 14,200km ‘jaunt’ from Auckland (AKL) to Dubai (DXB) on March 17th, 2017. The St. Patrick’s Day flight lasted 16 hours, 39 minutes.
The only time I have been aboard an A380 was on an Emirates visit to Los Angeles two years ago. After 20 minutes aboard, it was clear that it was quite a plane. So I chose the LAX A380 Emirates tag. It commemorates the four LAX landings A6-EDA made, starting on August 5, 2008. Airtag also offers similar tags for all 62 of the airports at which A6-EDA landed.
I have been covering travel for many years, yet I have never flown on an A380. No American airline ever purchased the Airbus A380.
Warren Buffett, 94, who has had many colorful things to say about the airline business, once said, “The airlines had a bad 20th Century.” Buffett might joke that not buying the costly-to-operate A380 was of a handful of sound economic decisions that U.S. airlines ever made.
At full take-off weight, an A380 weighed over a million pounds, with its four engines thirstily gulping fuel. The plane requires two pilots (sometimes two more on longer flights) and 21 flight attendants.
The elegant A380 was an epic money loser from the get-go, with $25-$30 billion sunk into development costs alone. Its development was based on a faulty concept. The idea was that hordes of people would cue up at a giant airport. They would then fly up to 10,000 miles to another major airport and 15 hours later, fly to their actual destination on a smaller jet. Only Emirates made this vision work.
Instead, over time smaller jets developed a longer range. It is also easier to sell tickets for a 180-seat airliner than for one with 505 seats. These smaller single-aisle jets also did not need the long runways or double-decker jet bridge that the A380 requires.
Just as important, smaller airliners like the Airbus A321neo family or the Boeing 737MAX were able to fly out of secondary airports instead of today’s congested 100-million passenger monstrosities. Thirty years ago, few would have thought of transatlantic flights from New York’s upstate Stewart (SWF) to London Gatwick, (LGW) rather than from JFK to Heathrow.
But it can’t be denied that the Airbus A380 was a grand plane, with plenty of seat and walking room for the passengers. Some of the Emirates A380 aircraft had their own bar, while Etihad offers The Residence, a three-room suite with fine linen and private shower. The Boeing 747 first kicked off the jumbo jet era in 1969, with 450 well-dressed passengers, some listening to the music from a piano bar.
But the superjumbo age of airline elegance is fading fast. Manufacture of the 747-800 passenger jet and the Airbus A380 ended in the early part of this decade. The COVID-19 pandemic, which parked 16,000 airliners including almost all of the super jumbos, also took its toll. Many airlines took the opportunity to scrap their older 747s and A380s and replace them with more fuel-efficient aircraft.
A few airlines, like Lufthansa and KAL, continue to fly the 747-800. Emirates and a handful of others will operate the remaining Airbus A380s into the 2030s.
No double-decker super-jumbo jets are on the horizon. Instead, airlines seeking elusive profits cram big luxury suites into single aisle narrowbody planes, while shrinking seats in the back. Passengers will not be wandering upstairs and down, drawn by the tinkling music of a piano bar.
Ideally, the journey should be as much fun as the destination. This is a lesson the cruise lines have taken to heart. Not so much the airline industry.
So until I get to fly aboard one, I have my memento of the great plane. Would I use it as a luggage tag or a key ring? Probably not. I wouldn’t want my keepsake scratched, even if it did survive 55,000 flight hours. But if I bought a few more…
