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There is a bigger problem. The growth of ETOPS planes (planes with two engines that can fly over the Atlantic or Pacific) with fewer seats that need to be fille
by InTheArena 9y ago
There is a bigger problem. The growth of ETOPS planes (planes with two engines that can fly over the Atlantic or Pacific) with fewer seats that need to be filled for a route to be profitable have basically made this plane irrelevant. This includes the 787, the 777, and Airbus's own A350. Airbus greenlit the project based on original sales projections of 1,200 A380s being sold. So far around three hundred have been sold. In addition Airbus projected a brand new market called "VLA" (very large aircraft >500 seats) would come into existence and demand sixty to seventy airframes a year. They therefore compromised the original design of the A380 to target a re-winged and re-engined stretch version down the line. So far most carriers run under 500 seats, with no-one even coming close the theoretical 850 seats that the current Airbus could do, to say nothing about a next generation A380.
Airbus explicitly bet that point to point routes would go away in favor of fortress hubs and hub to hub traffic. The reverse has instead happened. United is making a small fortune now with hub to previously unserved cities in Asia. Norwegian is disrupting the entire Atlantic market by flying 787s into other carriers hubs, destroying any economic advantage that the hubs have.
Airbus wanted plane that was "the biggest and the best" for prestige purposes. That led them to green-light the A380. The A308s engineering problems are problems, but what ultimately dooms it is a basic conceptual problem with the plane itself. It's basically a prestige project, and is going to leave Airbus and European tax-payers on the hook.
All that said, the A380 is a great plane to fly on. I fly it regularly to Bangkok via Seoul. More often then not, the entire upper deck (which is business only on Korean) is 75% empty.
- rpmcmurphy 9y agoI call the A380 the Flytanic. It's not even a very atrractive plane. The 747 is retro now, but it is a beautiful plane. Whenever I can, I fly the 787 on long haul flights. Super comfortable, love it.
- Joeri 9y agoI recently flew economy in a 787 for the first time and it was the most uncomfortable flight I've ever had. Incredibly narrow seats, and way too much cabin noise. I have heard the same thing from other people. I wish airlines would charge a bit more per seat instead of trying to keep shrinking the seats. As it stands you have to pay a lot extra in many cases to get a comfortable seat.
- cli 9y agoThe dimension of the seats is dependent on the airline. I do not know about the cabin noise.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoMy 787 experience on ANA was amazing! Probably the most comfortable flight I've ever had.
- dakial1 9y agoYou must have been on JAL 787. The economy seats there are incredibly tiny. I assume this is because Japanese people are not big.
- thrillgore 9y agoI've never liked the 747, but i've flown internationally on the 777ER on Delta and Air France. Wonderful experience for the most part.
- thrillgore 9y agoI've never liked the 747, but i've flown internationally on the 777ER on Delta and Air France. Wonderful experience for the most part.
- bpodgursky 9y agoAlso want to point out that the A380 is one of the least fuel efficient modern planes on the market per passenger-mile. Obviously the 787 is famously fuel-efficient, but even other standard planes fare much better (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft). Buying an A380 is super risky, since you'll be bitten either by an economic downturn (if you can't fill the whole A380, it's a massive money sink; smaller planes are far more flexible) or by rising jet fuel prices (which is highly likely, since these planes are expected to fly for 20+ years).
- valuearb 9y agoIt's shocking that it's almost as inefficient as a 30 year old 747 on a per seat basis. If it's % load factor is lower than other airliners that's a double whammy.
- InTheArena 9y agoThe cost per seat-mile is being driven by the fact that Airbus sold the seat-mile efficiencies assuming a larger number of seats then the airlines have actually outfitted. The 747 and the 707 are _the_ airframes that changed the world. Boeing is still releasing planes that are directly derived from the 707s (the 737-MAX) while the 747s where not only the first double deck jet, they were the first widebody. Their times are coming to a end though..
- gozur88 9y agoThe big advantage of the A380 is routes out of airports like Heathrow with few available landing slots.
- InTheArena 9y agoActually, statistically the A380 dominates ME traffic, primarily because of Emirates. The only thing that has let the A380 limp along this long as been EK's order book. That said, it's pretty clear that the hypothesis that all airports would resemble heathrow - flag capitals with flag carriers and slot restrictions - is not the way the world has evolved.
- _kyran 9y agoWhy did Emirates purchase so many compared to other airlines with many of the same routes (Qatar, Etihad etc) or similarly big hubs (Singapore).
- bdhess 9y agoMy understanding is that the wake caused by the A380 requires that additional buffer space be allocated in the landing/takeoff sequence, so this advantage really doesn't exist.
- jakub_g 9y agoAccording to Wikipedia, indeed, in last 3 years there were only 2 new orders as well as 2 cancellations, and some airlines are considering getting rid of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#Timeline
- SkyMarshal 9y agoI still recall way back when the A380 and 787 were announced, Airbus and Boeing were espousing and committing to very different ideas about how air travel would evolve. Airbus was betting the hub and spoke model would remain and become more dominant, and Boeing was betting on more point-to-point. Anecdotally, Boeing got a little press hate as observers thought the 787 was just a weak response to the A380 announcement, more of a face-saver than a strong vision. Decades later it's looking like Boeing made the right call.
- geezerjay 9y ago> Decades later it's looking like Boeing made the right call. I don't believe that it was not as much as Boeing making the right call as it was the A380 suffering from massive delays that lead to its introduction right on the onset of the global financial crisis. Faced with a short-term scenario where demand for air travel would even drop, spending an extra 200 million on each plane to acquire 4 times the seating capacity and is more expensive to operate isn't exactly a sound business decision. Moreover, not all airports could serve the A380. The hub and spoke model is a fundamental part of today's air travel, but so is offering frequent flights between hubs. If an airline serves between 60 to 80 clients per flight, why would they spend more to get 10x the required capacity and costs more to operate?
- InTheArena 9y agoYou need to remember that Boeing actually went faster first, and when that failed, they went to the 7E7 - what eventually became the 787. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Sonic_Cruiser Boeing ended up doing pretty well with that mistep. It kept them from launching the 747 expansion that they were talking about (which would have been a disaster) and eventually made them really listen to customers - something that Airbus wasn't doing in the heady days after the millennium in Europe.
- JPKab 9y ago"It's basically a prestige project, and is going to leave Airbus and European tax-payers on the hook." I wasn't aware that Airbus was subsidized by EU taxpayers. How does that work? Is it done in an indirect way, like in the US, where companies like Boeing get tons of defense contracts, or something different?
- thrillgore 9y agoAirbus (nee EADS) was formed by decree, several aerospace companies in the EU were forced to merge, forming EADS.