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I 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

I 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 ago
You 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.

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 ago

You 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.