6 ms·

Singapore Airlines Won’t Extend Lease on First Airbus A380 Jet

30 points by clorenzo 10y ago

tetrep 10y ago
tl;dr The plane is too big (600 seats) and airlines are concerned that it is/would be too hard to fill all the seats. I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something :/
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  I think it's still interesting, because (20 years ago) Airbus and Boeing made two very different bets on what air travel would look like in the future. Boeing thought it would be mostly P2P and built the 787; Airbus thought it would be hub-and-spoke and so built the A380. It's going to take a decade or more for this to play out, but this might be the first sign that Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    Isn't it likely to be some of both? Dubai and Istanbul airports weren't in the top 30 by traffic until 2007, and they're now at 3rd and 11th biggest in the world. Those places are well-located for transfers for people travelling between Europe and Asia.
  - daemin 10y ago
    I think it still depends, for the flights I have done most often most recently the hub and spoke model is still very efficient. For Europe to Australia you pretty much have to, it's an 8 and 13 hour flight combination, either going through the Middle East (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) or Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, etc). For these longer flights between big cities, being able to pack more passengers in is still desirable.
  - xenadu02 10y ago
    I wouldn't say Boeing bet on P2P, more that they bet on flexibility and fuel efficiency. You can always fly two smaller planes on a really busy route but every flight of a 600-seater 1/3 full loses you a huge amount of money. That applies whether you're doing hub-and-spoke or mostly direct routes. Using carbon fiber and mostly electrical systems reduces weight which has a huge fuel savings over the life of the aircraft. Of course Boeing also bet that they could bust their union* to goose profits (jury is still out on that) and outsource manufacturing (massive failure). The 787 was almost a disaster because of it. They had to go buy out a number of their suppliers and bring other work back in-house. Just about the only bright spot is their partnership with Japanese companies. That's why Japanese airlines massively prefer Boeing planes and is a strategic effort on Boeing's part. (It's also why Japan took the battery failures so seriously: the batteries were made in Japan). If I had to guess, this is also a strategy Apple uses and part of the reason they buy Sony camera sensors and helped Foxconn invest in Sharp's display production. * This one irks me because they're in an effective dualopoly with Airbus and profitable. It isn't a Detroit situation where the union was imposing massive inefficiencies on the business. It's purely an attempt to screw the lower-level employees. People wonder why incomes have been stagnant for so long... The richer you are the more money permanently joins the capital class vs circulating in the economy as spending. The more money accumulates at the top, the more excess capital and weak spending you'll have.
  - Xixi 10y ago
    Both Airbus and Boeing have extensive lineups, so I don't think it's true to say that they did bet anything at all. This is mostly storytelling on much more boring decisions: Boeing built the 787 because the A330 had pretty much killed the 767 for passenger airliners, leaving a gap in Boeing's lineup. The 787 is very much an improved A330. Airbus answer to the B787 has never been the A380, though it has certainly been a mess: at first it was the A350, then the A350-XWB [1], and now both the A330NEO and A350-XWB. Note that the A330NEO is in fact not that different from the first proposed A350, though less ambitious. On the other hand the A340-600 was an unmitigated disaster, grossly overweight and unable to compete against the 777-300ER, leaving Boeing's 777-300ER and 747 without competition. Airbus decided to go all in and to fight Boeing from above, with an even bigger plane with unbeatable efficiency. Had the A380-900 and A380-1000 been built, they would still be unmatched and completely out of reach in terms of efficiency. And very few airlines would have bought them because they would have been way way too big. Boeing answer to the A380 was the 747-8, which like the A380 is dying from lackluster sales. [1] The first A350 would have competed directly with the 787, but airlines steered Airbus towards making it bigger, making the A350-XWB effectively a competitor to the 777. In doing so it became too big to compete against smaller 787, so Airbus eventually decided to re-engine the A330. In terms of size the line up is (very roughly, with overlap): 767 < A330 < 787 < A350 < 777 < 747 < A380.
- dingaling 10y ago
  TLDR: building airliners is an iterative learning-process like writing software. Best to avoid v1.0 > I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something The first five A380s that SIA received on lease from Doric, of which this is one, are very early production airframes[0] and are noticable heavier and less efficient than the later 14. SIA have talked about this on several occasions, it's no different to Boeing's 'terrible teens' 787s that are less desirable than later production examples and which will probably suffer the same fate. They also have five more A380s on order, so if they drop the lease on the other four oldest airframes then their A380 fleet will remain static. But that's not as exciting a headline. [0] construction numbers 003, 005, 006, 008 and 010. Their most recent in service is 092, for contrast, and 243, 247, 251, 253 and 255 are on the production schedule for them.
kozak 10y ago
So what are the reasons (in short)? The article is behind a paywall.
- strictnein 10y ago
  Click "web" under the article link. Click first link in Google results.
  - cordite 10y ago
    Oh wow! I never noticed that!
    - teh_klev 10y ago
      archive.is is also your friend when that doesn't work: http://archive.is/yVKvE http://archive.is/yVKvE
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rtb 10y ago
  > The A380’s size has become its disadvantage as airlines prefer relatively smaller planes such as the Airbus A350 and rival Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner that can fly nonstop to their ultimate destinations, bypassing major hubs such as London Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi Airport. (Range seems odd to me as a factor, as Wikipedia thinks the Dreamliner and the A380 have the same max range.)
  - goodcanadian 10y ago
    The range is important because historically, small jets had comparatively short ranges. The pattern used to be to use small jets as feeders to major hubs. The large jets would fly between the major hubs. Now, with small jets having greater range, you can send flights direct bypassing the major hub. There is not enough traffic on the route to warrant a large jet, however, so smaller jets with the same range are preferred.
cft 10y ago
Government planning fails yet another time
- chulk90 10y ago
  Actually, it's the opposite, and there's more than the lazy "Government planning fails yet another time." I'm not sure whether you know much about the commercial airlines industry, but recent deregulation has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos. Downside: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 10y ago
  Singapore is pretty much the success poster child for government-corporate central planning. Otherwise it would still be a fort on a rock.
chulk90 10y ago
Here's some insight: The recent deregulation worldwide has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and even B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all of the U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) are either phasing out or parked all of their jumbos. Side effect: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.
- chulk90 10y ago
  737s and 320s are really popular for short-range flights, while 777s and 330s are the go-to choices for long-range flights.
- BorgHunter 10y ago
  > In fact, all of the U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos. This is not true quite yet, although it will be true in a couple years. United and Delta still operate a handful of 747s on their densest routes, but they're in the process of being phased out. Here are a couple flights: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL59/history/20160914/1155Z/EDDF/KSFO https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL59/history/20160914/1... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL278/history/20160914/1050Z/RJBB/PHNL https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL278/history/20160914/...
- jkot 10y ago
  Four engine aircrafts are also more difficult/expensive to maintain. Most pilots prefer two engines.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    I'm curious, why would a pilot working for a commercial airline care about the maintenance cost or difficulty?
    - jkot 10y ago
the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
So sad. The A380 is my absolutely favourite plane and I usually go out of my way to fly it. It's so smooth and relaxing to be on.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Smoother/quieter than the 787? I haven't been on either but thought that the bleedless engines and everything-electrical would make for a quieter ride.
  - gshakir 10y ago
    Yes, I flew 787 on BA, the experience was similar to 777. But A380 because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing.
    - AceyMan 10y ago
      > because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing Selection bias? Try— "Because the A380 is the top level equipment operated by the carriers, pay scale for pilots is greatest. Ergo, they are flown by the most senior crew; since practice correlates strongly with proficiency these pilots have a higher rate of grease jobs." (1) (1) Grease job = industry lingo for a buttery smooth touchdown, aka, "painted it on." :-D
  - yaantc 10y ago
    I can't compare to the 787 (haven't flied it yet), but I second GP opinion and I think it's mostly due to the 380 size. In turbulence size matters and the 380 is noticeably smoother than other planes like 330/777 from my limited experience. It's also a bit quieter IMHO.
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    I do not remember the 787 as a particularly quiet plane inside but i only flew it once. It's still hard to encounter from europe.
- 10y ago
stevage 10y ago
How exactly does the market for aeroplanes operate? Is there a Craigslist for superjumbos?
markplindsay 10y ago
It looks like SQ is going all-in on the A350 to expand their list of destinations. I am looking forward to the restart of their SIN-NYC nonstop[0] on the A350-900ULR. The discontinued A340-based flight was out of my price range at the time, so I never had a chance to fly it. I did fly the (also discontinued) Thai Airways JFK-BKK once—it was neat to get on a plane in NYC and get off in Southeast Asia. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21
mastax 10y ago
Relavent to this smaller/longer distance airplane conversation: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-will-launch-age-of.html http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-wil...
scriptproof 10y ago
The number of orders for A380 is still increasing in 2016, so there is a lot of speculations for just one airline company with oldest versions of the plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...
- objclxt 10y ago
  I don't know what table you're looking at, but there have been no new orders for A380s this year, and last year only two planes were ordered.
- Diederich 10y ago
  I must be reading that wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries#By_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and... Net orders: 2011: 19 2012: 9 2013: 42 2014: 13 2015: 2 2016: -
  - scriptproof 10y ago
    Your are both right for the orders (till august). That is the number of planes in operation that is still increasing.
arcticbull 10y ago
This is something of a non-story; Singapore retains one of the youngest fleets in the business (average 8.1 years [1]) and the oldest A380 airframe is almost 10 years old. This is approximately when Singapore replaces planes with the newer versions. Given they have 5 on order, getting rid of all of them will leave them with the same number of planes and a much lower fleet age. [1] http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm

30 points by clorenzo 10y ago

tl;dr The plane is too big (600 seats) and airlines are concerned that it is/would be too hard to fill all the seats. I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something :/

Analemma_ 10y ago
I think it's still interesting, because (20 years ago) Airbus and Boeing made two very different bets on what air travel would look like in the future. Boeing thought it would be mostly P2P and built the 787; Airbus thought it would be hub-and-spoke and so built the A380. It's going to take a decade or more for this to play out, but this might be the first sign that Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  Isn't it likely to be some of both? Dubai and Istanbul airports weren't in the top 30 by traffic until 2007, and they're now at 3rd and 11th biggest in the world. Those places are well-located for transfers for people travelling between Europe and Asia.
- daemin 10y ago
  I think it still depends, for the flights I have done most often most recently the hub and spoke model is still very efficient. For Europe to Australia you pretty much have to, it's an 8 and 13 hour flight combination, either going through the Middle East (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) or Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, etc). For these longer flights between big cities, being able to pack more passengers in is still desirable.
- xenadu02 10y ago
  I wouldn't say Boeing bet on P2P, more that they bet on flexibility and fuel efficiency. You can always fly two smaller planes on a really busy route but every flight of a 600-seater 1/3 full loses you a huge amount of money. That applies whether you're doing hub-and-spoke or mostly direct routes. Using carbon fiber and mostly electrical systems reduces weight which has a huge fuel savings over the life of the aircraft. Of course Boeing also bet that they could bust their union* to goose profits (jury is still out on that) and outsource manufacturing (massive failure). The 787 was almost a disaster because of it. They had to go buy out a number of their suppliers and bring other work back in-house. Just about the only bright spot is their partnership with Japanese companies. That's why Japanese airlines massively prefer Boeing planes and is a strategic effort on Boeing's part. (It's also why Japan took the battery failures so seriously: the batteries were made in Japan). If I had to guess, this is also a strategy Apple uses and part of the reason they buy Sony camera sensors and helped Foxconn invest in Sharp's display production. * This one irks me because they're in an effective dualopoly with Airbus and profitable. It isn't a Detroit situation where the union was imposing massive inefficiencies on the business. It's purely an attempt to screw the lower-level employees. People wonder why incomes have been stagnant for so long... The richer you are the more money permanently joins the capital class vs circulating in the economy as spending. The more money accumulates at the top, the more excess capital and weak spending you'll have.
- Xixi 10y ago
  Both Airbus and Boeing have extensive lineups, so I don't think it's true to say that they did bet anything at all. This is mostly storytelling on much more boring decisions: Boeing built the 787 because the A330 had pretty much killed the 767 for passenger airliners, leaving a gap in Boeing's lineup. The 787 is very much an improved A330. Airbus answer to the B787 has never been the A380, though it has certainly been a mess: at first it was the A350, then the A350-XWB [1], and now both the A330NEO and A350-XWB. Note that the A330NEO is in fact not that different from the first proposed A350, though less ambitious. On the other hand the A340-600 was an unmitigated disaster, grossly overweight and unable to compete against the 777-300ER, leaving Boeing's 777-300ER and 747 without competition. Airbus decided to go all in and to fight Boeing from above, with an even bigger plane with unbeatable efficiency. Had the A380-900 and A380-1000 been built, they would still be unmatched and completely out of reach in terms of efficiency. And very few airlines would have bought them because they would have been way way too big. Boeing answer to the A380 was the 747-8, which like the A380 is dying from lackluster sales. [1] The first A350 would have competed directly with the 787, but airlines steered Airbus towards making it bigger, making the A350-XWB effectively a competitor to the 777. In doing so it became too big to compete against smaller 787, so Airbus eventually decided to re-engine the A330. In terms of size the line up is (very roughly, with overlap): 767 < A330 < 787 < A350 < 777 < 747 < A380.
dingaling 10y ago
TLDR: building airliners is an iterative learning-process like writing software. Best to avoid v1.0 > I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something The first five A380s that SIA received on lease from Doric, of which this is one, are very early production airframes[0] and are noticable heavier and less efficient than the later 14. SIA have talked about this on several occasions, it's no different to Boeing's 'terrible teens' 787s that are less desirable than later production examples and which will probably suffer the same fate. They also have five more A380s on order, so if they drop the lease on the other four oldest airframes then their A380 fleet will remain static. But that's not as exciting a headline. [0] construction numbers 003, 005, 006, 008 and 010. Their most recent in service is 092, for contrast, and 243, 247, 251, 253 and 255 are on the production schedule for them.

kozak 10y ago

So what are the reasons (in short)? The article is behind a paywall.

strictnein 10y ago
Click "web" under the article link. Click first link in Google results.
- cordite 10y ago
  Oh wow! I never noticed that!
  - teh_klev 10y ago
    archive.is is also your friend when that doesn't work: http://archive.is/yVKvE http://archive.is/yVKvE
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rtb 10y ago
> The A380’s size has become its disadvantage as airlines prefer relatively smaller planes such as the Airbus A350 and rival Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner that can fly nonstop to their ultimate destinations, bypassing major hubs such as London Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi Airport. (Range seems odd to me as a factor, as Wikipedia thinks the Dreamliner and the A380 have the same max range.)
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  The range is important because historically, small jets had comparatively short ranges. The pattern used to be to use small jets as feeders to major hubs. The large jets would fly between the major hubs. Now, with small jets having greater range, you can send flights direct bypassing the major hub. There is not enough traffic on the route to warrant a large jet, however, so smaller jets with the same range are preferred.

cft 10y ago

Government planning fails yet another time

chulk90 10y ago
Actually, it's the opposite, and there's more than the lazy "Government planning fails yet another time." I'm not sure whether you know much about the commercial airlines industry, but recent deregulation has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos. Downside: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 10y ago
Singapore is pretty much the success poster child for government-corporate central planning. Otherwise it would still be a fort on a rock.

chulk90 10y ago

Here's some insight: The recent deregulation worldwide has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and even B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all of the U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) are either phasing out or parked all of their jumbos. Side effect: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.

chulk90 10y ago
737s and 320s are really popular for short-range flights, while 777s and 330s are the go-to choices for long-range flights.
BorgHunter 10y ago
> In fact, all of the U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos. This is not true quite yet, although it will be true in a couple years. United and Delta still operate a handful of 747s on their densest routes, but they're in the process of being phased out. Here are a couple flights: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL59/history/20160914/1155Z/EDDF/KSFO https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL59/history/20160914/1... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL278/history/20160914/1050Z/RJBB/PHNL https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL278/history/20160914/...
jkot 10y ago
Four engine aircrafts are also more difficult/expensive to maintain. Most pilots prefer two engines.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  I'm curious, why would a pilot working for a commercial airline care about the maintenance cost or difficulty?
  - jkot 10y ago

the_mitsuhiko 10y ago

So sad. The A380 is my absolutely favourite plane and I usually go out of my way to fly it. It's so smooth and relaxing to be on.

dorfsmay 10y ago
Smoother/quieter than the 787? I haven't been on either but thought that the bleedless engines and everything-electrical would make for a quieter ride.
- gshakir 10y ago
  Yes, I flew 787 on BA, the experience was similar to 777. But A380 because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing.
  - AceyMan 10y ago
    > because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing Selection bias? Try— "Because the A380 is the top level equipment operated by the carriers, pay scale for pilots is greatest. Ergo, they are flown by the most senior crew; since practice correlates strongly with proficiency these pilots have a higher rate of grease jobs." (1) (1) Grease job = industry lingo for a buttery smooth touchdown, aka, "painted it on." :-D
- yaantc 10y ago
  I can't compare to the 787 (haven't flied it yet), but I second GP opinion and I think it's mostly due to the 380 size. In turbulence size matters and the 380 is noticeably smoother than other planes like 330/777 from my limited experience. It's also a bit quieter IMHO.
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  I do not remember the 787 as a particularly quiet plane inside but i only flew it once. It's still hard to encounter from europe.
10y ago

stevage 10y ago

How exactly does the market for aeroplanes operate? Is there a Craigslist for superjumbos?

markplindsay 10y ago

It looks like SQ is going all-in on the A350 to expand their list of destinations. I am looking forward to the restart of their SIN-NYC nonstop[0] on the A350-900ULR. The discontinued A340-based flight was out of my price range at the time, so I never had a chance to fly it. I did fly the (also discontinued) Thai Airways JFK-BKK once—it was neat to get on a plane in NYC and get off in Southeast Asia. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21

mastax 10y ago

Relavent to this smaller/longer distance airplane conversation: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-will-launch-age-of.html http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-wil...

scriptproof 10y ago

The number of orders for A380 is still increasing in 2016, so there is a lot of speculations for just one airline company with oldest versions of the plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...

objclxt 10y ago
I don't know what table you're looking at, but there have been no new orders for A380s this year, and last year only two planes were ordered.
Diederich 10y ago
I must be reading that wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries#By_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and... Net orders: 2011: 19 2012: 9 2013: 42 2014: 13 2015: 2 2016: -
- scriptproof 10y ago
  Your are both right for the orders (till august). That is the number of planes in operation that is still increasing.

arcticbull 10y ago

This is something of a non-story; Singapore retains one of the youngest fleets in the business (average 8.1 years [1]) and the oldest A380 airframe is almost 10 years old. This is approximately when Singapore replaces planes with the newer versions. Given they have 5 on order, getting rid of all of them will leave them with the same number of planes and a much lower fleet age. [1] http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm