Global Airlines completed four passenger flights chartered by Hi Fly in May. The aircraft flew round-trip from Glasgow to New York JFK for its inaugural, and also completed a round-trip from Manchester to New York JFK.
We haven’t heard much from them since though, and its A380, 9H-GLOBL, has been sitting quietly.
Yesterday though, 9H-GLOBL made its way from Dresden, Germany, to Tarbes, France, for storage. This was the aircraft’s first flight since late May, when it returned from Glasgow to Dresden following the Hi Fly charter flights (excluding a short, 28-minute circle around Dresden Airport a couple of weeks ago).
9H-GLOBL made its way to Tarbes in just under 2 hours, where presumably the aircraft will sit in storage until whatever comes next.
Following a post by Flightradar24 on X though, a Global Airlines spokesperson gave this statement to Flightradar24:
“After completing the latest maintenance in Dresden, 9H-GLOBL will be heading to Tarbes to park until it is time to head off to the next stage of heavy maintenance. In recent months the first Global aircraft has crossed the Atlantic multiple times, visited New York, Berlin, Barcelona, Manchester, Glasgow and London, carried its first paying passengers and shown how incredible the A380 is in so many ways. It’s always great to see her in the sky and it won’t be long before she is up in the clouds once again on the way to the next adventure. Thanks to all the folk in Dresden for looking after her so well.”
So, according to this statement, the aircraft has been undergoing maintenance over the past month and a half in Dresden (which is believable given the short 28-minute circle around the airport a couple of weeks ago), and this will be followed by another round of “heavy maintenance.” Until then, the aircraft will wait and stay “parked” in Tarbes.
Tarbes Airport has plenty of aircraft in storage, lined up in a way like the above photo. I’d think that it was probably cheaper for Global to place their aircraft here compared to Dresden, and it could be a while until the next stage of “heavy maintenance” for the aircraft.
I’m curious about what heavy maintenance they’re referring to, especially as this aircraft was able to complete four transatlantic flights just a couple of months ago. Is it something with the A380? Is it actually cabin refurbishment, which reportedly needed a lot of work?
Since the Hi Fly flights, there have been rumors of Global becoming an ACMI operator following Saudi investors acquiring a stake, to which Global has declined.
Who knows what’s to come for them? It was always going to be difficult to pull this off, especially with an aircraft like the Airbus A380. There are many, many question marks ahead.
Featured image by Wikipedia Commons.
