The last Etihad Airways Airbus A380 held in storage since the COVID-19 pandemic departed Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport on September 17, 2026, at shortly after 09:30 local time, bound for Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport. The aircraft, registered A6-APB, had spent more than five years in southern France.

The 12-year-old A380-800 required eight months of preparation for flight with TARMAC Aerosave, the storage and recycling specialist based at Tarbes, according to Flightradar24 data. Once it lands in Abu Dhabi, the jet will enter further heavy maintenance before it is cleared for commercial operations.

A6-APB's return marks the final step in a phased reactivation that began three years ago. Etihad delivered the aircraft in 2015, withdrew it from operations in 2020 and ferried it to Tarbes in December 2020, when the pandemic grounded global long-haul travel and the carrier initially had no plans to return any of its superjumbos to service.

That position reversed as demand for long-haul flying recovered. In August 2025, Etihad confirmed plans to bring back its last two stored A380s, targeting service entry in June 2026 and January 2027 respectively.

The recovery sequence has tracked close to that schedule. The first stored aircraft, A6-APG, returned in March 2023, followed by A6-API in May 2023. The third, A6-APH, left Tarbes on June 21, 2023. A6-APC, the sister ship to A6-APB, arrived back in Abu Dhabi in January 2026 and re-entered service on June 5, 2026, according to Planespotters.net data.

Once A6-APB completes its heavy maintenance and returns to the line, all nine of Etihad's remaining A380s will be active. The carrier originally stored all ten of its double-deckers during the pandemic; the first of the fleet, A6-APA, was scrapped in 2025.

The reactivation carries cost and capacity implications for Etihad's Abu Dhabi hub. Each returning A380 restores peak-seat capacity on high-density long-haul routes that the airline cannot economically serve with smaller widebodies alone, but it also commits the carrier to sustaining heavy maintenance and parts support for an out-of-production type — Airbus ended A380 assembly in 2021 — across a fleet that now numbers nine rather than ten.

With A6-APB now airborne, Etihad's A380 program enters its final act: completing the jet's heavy maintenance in Abu Dhabi ahead of the January 2027 service-entry target.