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The Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 can both seat up to ~350 passengers, which is not hugely different from the 350-450 on a longhaul 747, but is much

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 can both seat up to ~350 passengers, which is not hugely different from the 350-450 on a longhaul 747, but is much more efficient since they're twin-engine instead of quad. (And yes, you can cram in well over 500 pax into a 747 if you use an tight economy-only config, but few airlines do.) The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, even though it's almost entirely served by "small" 737/A320s: https://www.ausbt.com.au/sydney-melbourne-is-now-the-world-s-second-busiest-airline-route https://www.ausbt.com.au/sydney-melbourne-is-now-the-world-s... There are still A380s flying, but they only make sense on those fairly rare routes where you've got massive volume and tight slot restrictions. London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do.

mehrdadn 9y ago
Is the point-to-point model more fuel-efficient than the hub model from a global rather than local standpoint? I get that it's more fuel-efficient per-flight but I wonder if they end up compensating with more flights or something. (I'm ignoring costs here; I'm just wondering what is the most green approach.)
- lmm 9y ago
  The small planes have roughly the same fuel consumption per passenger per mile as the large ones these days (AIUI the disadvantage of more engines balances the advantage of a larger plane. Maybe a hypothetical "twin-engine A380" could be more fuel-efficient - I'm not sure why that hasn't been attempted). So assuming equal loadings on all flights, point-to-point would be more fuel-efficient than a hub model (since passengers travel further in the hub model). Obviously if point-to-point leads to planes flying half-empty then at some point that becomes a bigger effect.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    To add to this analysis: the hub model, by definition, add at least one, and possibly two flights. It's not just an increase in distant, but all the fuel inefficiency of starting, landing, idling on the ground etc.
  - willyt 9y ago
    Rolls Royce had to design special extra large engines for the A380. Because of the large diameter of the fan they had to use clever blade geometry to overcome problems with supersonic airflow at the ends of the fan blades. So I'm guessing that two even larger engines would be tricky.
    - selectodude 9y ago
      A380's engines are the same size as the early-90s 777 engines, and smaller than both the GE90 and the new GE9X. They didn't have to do anything tricky for them. You may be thinking of the new Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, which will be on the A320neo, which has a geared turbofan for that reason.
  - exidy 9y ago
    An A380 has about 1,400 kN available from its four engines. A twin engine A380 would need two engines developing at least 650-700 kN just to get off the ground. For reference, the GE9X being developed for the 777X develops 470 kN. To make things more complex, there are regulations that require an aircraft to be able to continue takeoff should one engine fail. To match the thrust available of an A380 on 3 engines would require nearly 1000 kN of thrust from a single engine, way beyond current commercial jet engine technology.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Depends on many factors, many of them indirect. For me to fly to my in-laws it is two flights, each at $120/person (prices change all the time and are never the same for each leg, but lets use these numbers). If I could get a direct flight for $150/person I'd be more likely to go, both because it is cheaper and because it avoids switching planes. Thus it might be less fuel-efficient on a global scale because of the greater number of people/flights. Direct flights can take more direct routes, which uses less fuel because people are going less distance. Direct flights also eliminate a lot of fuel infrastructure at the hubs - you don't need moving sidewalks or trams if the airport is smaller. These are fuel savings. I suspect that take-off use a lot of fuel, but I don't know how jet engines work well enough to know if this obvious savings is significant or not.
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  It all depends on the ability to fill your plane with passengers. Full planes means high fuel efficiency and low costs. It is much easier to get full planes with high frequency departures on a hub model than it is on a point to point model. Generally people don't like connections, so their propensity to buy is much lower if there is a competing direct flight available. There is a balance to be made, but generally speaking a point to point route is only more efficient if the passenger volume is extremely high and very predictable. A lot of people, though, are confusing the recent availability of new international direct flights with a move towards a point to point model. This is completely false. The increase in "direct" flights has to do with the expansion of hubs and airlines. For example, if you go to the SeaTac airport [0] has a higher number of direct international routes than it ever has, but every single one of them has a hub for that airline at the origin or the destination. You have more direct flights not because the airlines are operating point to point routes, but because you have more hubs and more airlines. Only regionally has point to point made more traction, but that is an irrelevant discussion when talking about the widebody market. [0] http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route-Maps/Pages/Non-Stop-International.aspx http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route-Ma...
  - jasode 9y ago
    >A lot of people, though, are confusing the recent availability of new international direct flights with a move towards a point to point model. This is completely false. The increase in "direct" flights has to do with the expansion of hubs and airlines. I think that's an example of using a absolutist definition of "point-to-point" instead of a relative definition. When airline industry analysts talk about 787 servicing more point-to-point routes, the "point-to-point" is relative to avoiding the mega hubs with 4-engine jumbo planes. Yes, there can be a so-called "point-to-point" at a 2nd-tier airport flying to another 2nd-tier airport (that also has "hub&spoke" like attributes) which makes it fail the absolutist definition of "point-to-point". We can concede that more restrictive definition and yet still simultaneously understand what the industry is talking about when they mention "point-to-point". The expansion of 2nd-tier hubs at budget airlines is still point-to-point compared to superhubs like New York JFK, London LHR, Paris CDG, etc.
awiesenhofer 9y ago
> Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route Interesting, with just about 900km between both cities they seem the perfect candidates for a highspeed rail link instead.
- yostrovs 9y ago
  They already have a much faster air link built.
  - hnarn 9y ago
    Comments that are ignorant on purpose are rarely impressive.
    - derrida 9y ago
      Meta comments about comments are best left to reddit.
- dagw 9y ago
  They're working on. It's been under 'serious' discussion since the 80's. There are currently vague plans being discussed that would lead to a high speed rail link being in place as early as 2032, but most people consider that pretty optimistic.
- tomhoward 9y ago
  Unfortunately the problem is low population density. Political parties are constantly proposing to build a fast rail link between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But at this stage the populations of the cities are just too low to make it economically feasible. Melbourne and Sydney are about 4M each, and Brisbane is 2M. By comparison, the Northeastern United States [1] has a population of 55M, in a smaller geographic area. And Japan has a population of 130M in an area about half the size of Sydney's state of New South Wales. I wish it could be done. It would be so much better to be able to board and disembark in the centre of town rather than having to drive/commute to and from airports. I'm hopeful that Hyperloop may be the answer, but we'll see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States
nabla9 9y ago
Asian air traffic is not increasing fast enough to save A380, Singapore Airlines (24), Korean Air (10) and China Southern Airlines (5) = 39 planes operating or ordered is not enough. One thing that cripples A380 adoption is its size. Airports and airfields before A380 were not designed to handle plane of that size and weight. Expensive changes for regular routes may be needed and new airports are not build very often. Interestingly A380 is relatively pavement-friendly aircraft because it's wide multi axis landing gears limit the maximum strain amplitude. Alas, landing fees are paid by weight, so A380 can't benefit from that.
- Tharkun 9y ago
  Building new airports (or expanding them) seems to be a lot like building new nuclear power plants. Ridiculously expensive, plagued by endless delays and more political than anyone is prepared for. The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is a wonderful example of that: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-crazy-saga-of-berlins-long-delayed-airport/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-crazy-saga-of-ber...
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    I don't know, Moscow upgraded its 3 airports in the last 10-15 years as well as opened a new one. You would imagine that everything left over from Soviet times needed a massive overhaul. Maybe the difference is whether you really need an airport, or when it is second to having a big public project to sink costs into?
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is a wonderful example of that BER has always been a program to transfer as much cash as possible into the private sector. The profit the building companies siphoned off (and will keep siphoning off!) is enormous. Unfortunately the city of Berlin has had to slash staff numbers in the last decades, so there is no in-house expertise to oversee that project... and external consultants don't have any incentive to actually do their job so the client has a benefit. They will want to drag out the BER build as long as possible, same as the building contractors.
tomhoward 9y ago
London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do It's notable that Qantas, which still operates the 747 as well as the A380 on its Australia-London routes (with layovers in SE Asia or the Middle East) has just started using the Dreamliner to operate its first ever non-stop Australia-London flight, departing from Perth (Australia's Western-most major city) [1]. It's conceivable that over time, Qantas could retire all its 747s and A380s and fly all its London passengers from Perth on the Dreamliner, using its many 737s and A320s for connections to/from from the rest of Australia. [1] https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop-perth-to-london https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop...
- mason55 9y ago
  Is there a possibility of improvements to the 787 that would get it from London to Sydney/Melbourne non-stop? Or is that route off the table until the next generation?
  - ngoldbaum 9y ago
    There's speculation that the 797 will be able to do this.
  - selectodude 9y ago
    They're getting close. Qantas is doing Perth to London on a 787-9 starting in March.
  - dzhiurgis 9y ago
    Also, are there aircraft capable doing Auckland-Istanbul? Emirates/Qatar is a good hub, but not ideal for me.
    - fyfy18 9y ago
      That’s 10,600nmi on a great circle route. Most current and upcoming long range aircraft are around 1000nmi short of that. (http://www.gcmap.com/ http://www.gcmap.com/ is a good site to find the distance of great circle routes)
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Lets not forget the twin engine 777, which carries more passengers than a 787 and has taken over on long hauls. It basically started the end for the 747 in passenger service. I’ve been on an all economy 380 between Guangzhou and Beijing. Fun plane.
- frik 9y ago
  From a safety point of view, I take a 747 or A380 any day or a (now defunct Trijet) to a twin engine 777 or A350. Guess were flying hours over the open sea (Atlantic) is safer because of redundancy, the more engines the more can go out and it still can land. The 777 is way too crammed. The washrooms are on the side instead in the middle aka mini-washrooms (but with window). In general it feels like the first computer designed airframe, they forgot about the size of humans, it's made for short people. I take a 747 or even better A380 any day over the 777. I mean who seriously prefers to sit in a narrow long can for 12 hours, when you can choose a double decker A380 were you can stretch your legs, walk around and have big washrooms were you can stand even upright. And don't get me started on the entertainment system of the 777 - needs a serious upgrade. The 757 will go out of service next, United still has some 757 from the 1980s - sure the seats are super comfortable because in the 1980s the were bigger and softer, but the airframe is old and the entertainment system was added as addon, meaning a computer box is below every other seat and gives the unlucky guy (who doesn't know about seatguru) little leg room. Why is the very very odd 737 still going? It's older than the 747, I wonder when they finally design a new smaller airframe.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Airlines decide on their 777 interiors and entertainment centers, so your experience on a Delta 777 will be very different from an air Singapore one. The 777 was a huge advance in composites, which were continued in the 787. My gf at the time dad worked on the plane and was very proud of it. The 737 has been updated many times and Boeing hasn’t seen the need to introduce a completely new narrow body. It is still very successful, so I guess they are right. In contrast, the 767 was dying and needed replacing by the 787, it couldn’t be updated. The 747 is still in production and is very successful in freight and other applications. It isn’t going away anytime soon.
jcadam 9y ago
The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Somebody tell Delta. I'm sick of having to connect through Atlanta.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- matthewmcg 9y ago
  You don't find scrambling from concourse to concourse on our crowded plane train charming? Kidding, of course, but when you do live in the hub city it does make it much easier to get a direct flight to almost any destination.
  - sweettea 9y ago
    The inter-terminal walk is actively enjoyable and de-stressing, particularly between A and B, and I don't understand why people don't default to walking instead of taking the plane train.
    - mynameisvlad 9y ago
      Yeah the greenery they added to the A-B walkway is downright cool. I was half excited to do the terminal hop last time I flew through ATL.
- chiph 9y ago
  You're not wrong. But Hartsfield-Jackson is an amazing machine.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  I do anything I can to avoid connecting through. Delta Using it as a test bed makes it very uncomfortable. Plastic seats, annoying boarding process people can’t seem to figure out, exposed ceiling (seriously it’s been well over a hear now), etc. I mean it’s not as bad as their new terminals at LAX but wow I have to rank it as one of my least favorite airports. I think I’m just spoiled by how nice PDX is.
saosebastiao 9y ago
> The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, even though it's almost entirely served by "small" 737/A320s: This is only true regionally or domestically. The hub and spoke model is more alive than ever on international routes. There are more direct routes today, but that is a consequence of having more hubs and more airlines, not because the airlines have figured out some advantage in point to point routes. For the long range widebody market, the largest planes don't save you much on fuel economy, even running full. A common saying in the industry is that it takes a lot of fuel to fly a lot of fuel; with fuel economy there are diminishing returns to aircraft size. Given they weren't saving much on fuel, the A380 and 747 only made sense at megahubs, because it reduced demand for landing and departure time slots. But the airlines responded to that problem in a different way: they increased the number of their hubs. This made them more flexible by not tying them into very expensive fleet decisions with new and unproven aircraft with hard staffing and infrastructural investments to go along with them, and it gives the advantage of having more direct routes.
- njarboe 9y ago
  "not because the airlines have figured out some advantage in point to point routes." Southwest has figured out the advantage. People want point to point and the profits and continued expansion of Southwest will hopefully clue the other airlines onto that fact. I fear the day when Southwest no longer has any competition and decides to convert over to a hub system to save on costs. Using current accounting methods, airlines see huge advantages in using a hub system. If they had to charge all the wasted time the hub system costs its passengers, they might see why Southwest keeps getting bigger and bigger. When looking to fly, I always sort for non-stops only and consider that as the price to fly to my destination (luckily I live in the Bay Area that has airport competition). Only when no non-stop flights exist, do I consider multiple stop flights.
  - saosebastiao 9y ago
    As I said, that is only true regionally or domestically. Even then, Southwest has minihubs in order to connect the routes that don't have enough volume to justify direct flights. You can see this yourself: if you track their flight numbers, each "flight" is typically 3 to 4 legs, at least one of which is a southwest hub. For example, Seattle's only point to point route on Southwest is to San Jose where Seattle has a lot of cultural and business connections due to the tech industry. Anywhere else from Seattle is either direct because Southwest happens to operate a hub there, or it transfers through a hub. Unique to southwest (I'd say it's a strategic advantage, but only viable regionally) is the use of focus cities like Sacramento. These operate essentially as hubs, but aren't called hubs because they don't have maintenance operations there. Southwest's route planning model within regions is quite unique, and you can see how it works by tracking a flight number. Almost all of their regional flights are 3 leg flights: (Spoke -> Hub -> Focus City -> Spoke) or (Spoke -> Focus City -> Hub -> Spoke). This allows them to have lots of hubs (which allows for a lot of direct flights), while still allowing nearly all of their fleet to have access to a hub's maintenance operations, which is probably the most expensive part of operating a hub. This gives the popular illusion of having an extensive point to point network, but in reality nearly all flights connect to a hub or pseudo hub. There is absolutely no doubt that people prefer direct flights. Airlines running hubs have basically resigned themselves to the fact that if southwest opens a direct route between any of their non-hub cities, they've lost almost all of their non-frequent-flier customers on that specific city pairing to Southwest. That means that direct flights only make sense if there is enough volume on the specific corridor, and that only ever happens regionally, because that is where all the cultural and business connections are.
switch007 9y ago
> Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, And wow, the most hilariously-expensive business class fares it seems: USD $1,288 return (even including a Sat night stay) with Qantas. It's a 1hr25min flight. Luckily Virgin looks to be providing some tough competition...at $1,143.
jlangenauer 9y ago
SYD-SCL and SYD-PER-JNB are routes where Qantas needs a 4-engined plane because they are so far outside the ETOPS limits. But those are pretty extreme exceptions.
- cjrp 9y ago
  Is that still the case with newer ETOPS limits, e.g. ETOPS-370?
defo_nonconvex 9y ago
Are twins inherently more efficient per pax than quads? Wouldn't a quad plane just run at a lower thrust level per engine? Given that fan sizes and core temperatures are rammed up against difficult limits, I would've thought that quads could give a better bypass ratio (and hence efficiency) by reducing the core engine size and thrust requirement. Or do you mean operational efficiency...fewer parts to maintain, engineers, simpler plumbing etc? Probably less disturbance on the wing flow with 2 engines as well.

mehrdadn 9y ago

Is the point-to-point model more fuel-efficient than the hub model from a global rather than local standpoint? I get that it's more fuel-efficient per-flight but I wonder if they end up compensating with more flights or something. (I'm ignoring costs here; I'm just wondering what is the most green approach.)

lmm 9y ago
The small planes have roughly the same fuel consumption per passenger per mile as the large ones these days (AIUI the disadvantage of more engines balances the advantage of a larger plane. Maybe a hypothetical "twin-engine A380" could be more fuel-efficient - I'm not sure why that hasn't been attempted). So assuming equal loadings on all flights, point-to-point would be more fuel-efficient than a hub model (since passengers travel further in the hub model). Obviously if point-to-point leads to planes flying half-empty then at some point that becomes a bigger effect.
- matt4077 9y ago
  To add to this analysis: the hub model, by definition, add at least one, and possibly two flights. It's not just an increase in distant, but all the fuel inefficiency of starting, landing, idling on the ground etc.
- willyt 9y ago
  Rolls Royce had to design special extra large engines for the A380. Because of the large diameter of the fan they had to use clever blade geometry to overcome problems with supersonic airflow at the ends of the fan blades. So I'm guessing that two even larger engines would be tricky.
  - selectodude 9y ago
    A380's engines are the same size as the early-90s 777 engines, and smaller than both the GE90 and the new GE9X. They didn't have to do anything tricky for them. You may be thinking of the new Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, which will be on the A320neo, which has a geared turbofan for that reason.
- exidy 9y ago
  An A380 has about 1,400 kN available from its four engines. A twin engine A380 would need two engines developing at least 650-700 kN just to get off the ground. For reference, the GE9X being developed for the 777X develops 470 kN. To make things more complex, there are regulations that require an aircraft to be able to continue takeoff should one engine fail. To match the thrust available of an A380 on 3 engines would require nearly 1000 kN of thrust from a single engine, way beyond current commercial jet engine technology.
bluGill 9y ago
Depends on many factors, many of them indirect. For me to fly to my in-laws it is two flights, each at $120/person (prices change all the time and are never the same for each leg, but lets use these numbers). If I could get a direct flight for $150/person I'd be more likely to go, both because it is cheaper and because it avoids switching planes. Thus it might be less fuel-efficient on a global scale because of the greater number of people/flights. Direct flights can take more direct routes, which uses less fuel because people are going less distance. Direct flights also eliminate a lot of fuel infrastructure at the hubs - you don't need moving sidewalks or trams if the airport is smaller. These are fuel savings. I suspect that take-off use a lot of fuel, but I don't know how jet engines work well enough to know if this obvious savings is significant or not.
saosebastiao 9y ago
It all depends on the ability to fill your plane with passengers. Full planes means high fuel efficiency and low costs. It is much easier to get full planes with high frequency departures on a hub model than it is on a point to point model. Generally people don't like connections, so their propensity to buy is much lower if there is a competing direct flight available. There is a balance to be made, but generally speaking a point to point route is only more efficient if the passenger volume is extremely high and very predictable. A lot of people, though, are confusing the recent availability of new international direct flights with a move towards a point to point model. This is completely false. The increase in "direct" flights has to do with the expansion of hubs and airlines. For example, if you go to the SeaTac airport [0] has a higher number of direct international routes than it ever has, but every single one of them has a hub for that airline at the origin or the destination. You have more direct flights not because the airlines are operating point to point routes, but because you have more hubs and more airlines. Only regionally has point to point made more traction, but that is an irrelevant discussion when talking about the widebody market. [0] http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route-Maps/Pages/Non-Stop-International.aspx http://www.portseattle.org/Sea-Tac/Flights-Airlines/Route-Ma...
- jasode 9y ago
  >A lot of people, though, are confusing the recent availability of new international direct flights with a move towards a point to point model. This is completely false. The increase in "direct" flights has to do with the expansion of hubs and airlines. I think that's an example of using a absolutist definition of "point-to-point" instead of a relative definition. When airline industry analysts talk about 787 servicing more point-to-point routes, the "point-to-point" is relative to avoiding the mega hubs with 4-engine jumbo planes. Yes, there can be a so-called "point-to-point" at a 2nd-tier airport flying to another 2nd-tier airport (that also has "hub&spoke" like attributes) which makes it fail the absolutist definition of "point-to-point". We can concede that more restrictive definition and yet still simultaneously understand what the industry is talking about when they mention "point-to-point". The expansion of 2nd-tier hubs at budget airlines is still point-to-point compared to superhubs like New York JFK, London LHR, Paris CDG, etc.

awiesenhofer 9y ago

> Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route Interesting, with just about 900km between both cities they seem the perfect candidates for a highspeed rail link instead.

yostrovs 9y ago
They already have a much faster air link built.
- hnarn 9y ago
  Comments that are ignorant on purpose are rarely impressive.
  - derrida 9y ago
    Meta comments about comments are best left to reddit.
dagw 9y ago
They're working on. It's been under 'serious' discussion since the 80's. There are currently vague plans being discussed that would lead to a high speed rail link being in place as early as 2032, but most people consider that pretty optimistic.
tomhoward 9y ago
Unfortunately the problem is low population density. Political parties are constantly proposing to build a fast rail link between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But at this stage the populations of the cities are just too low to make it economically feasible. Melbourne and Sydney are about 4M each, and Brisbane is 2M. By comparison, the Northeastern United States [1] has a population of 55M, in a smaller geographic area. And Japan has a population of 130M in an area about half the size of Sydney's state of New South Wales. I wish it could be done. It would be so much better to be able to board and disembark in the centre of town rather than having to drive/commute to and from airports. I'm hopeful that Hyperloop may be the answer, but we'll see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States

nabla9 9y ago

Asian air traffic is not increasing fast enough to save A380, Singapore Airlines (24), Korean Air (10) and China Southern Airlines (5) = 39 planes operating or ordered is not enough. One thing that cripples A380 adoption is its size. Airports and airfields before A380 were not designed to handle plane of that size and weight. Expensive changes for regular routes may be needed and new airports are not build very often. Interestingly A380 is relatively pavement-friendly aircraft because it's wide multi axis landing gears limit the maximum strain amplitude. Alas, landing fees are paid by weight, so A380 can't benefit from that.

Tharkun 9y ago
Building new airports (or expanding them) seems to be a lot like building new nuclear power plants. Ridiculously expensive, plagued by endless delays and more political than anyone is prepared for. The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is a wonderful example of that: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-crazy-saga-of-berlins-long-delayed-airport/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-crazy-saga-of-ber...
- thriftwy 9y ago
  I don't know, Moscow upgraded its 3 airports in the last 10-15 years as well as opened a new one. You would imagine that everything left over from Soviet times needed a massive overhaul. Maybe the difference is whether you really need an airport, or when it is second to having a big public project to sink costs into?
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > The Berlin Brandenburg Airport is a wonderful example of that BER has always been a program to transfer as much cash as possible into the private sector. The profit the building companies siphoned off (and will keep siphoning off!) is enormous. Unfortunately the city of Berlin has had to slash staff numbers in the last decades, so there is no in-house expertise to oversee that project... and external consultants don't have any incentive to actually do their job so the client has a benefit. They will want to drag out the BER build as long as possible, same as the building contractors.

tomhoward 9y ago

London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do It's notable that Qantas, which still operates the 747 as well as the A380 on its Australia-London routes (with layovers in SE Asia or the Middle East) has just started using the Dreamliner to operate its first ever non-stop Australia-London flight, departing from Perth (Australia's Western-most major city) [1]. It's conceivable that over time, Qantas could retire all its 747s and A380s and fly all its London passengers from Perth on the Dreamliner, using its many 737s and A320s for connections to/from from the rest of Australia. [1] https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop-perth-to-london https://dreamliner.qantas.com/article/qantas-to-fly-non-stop...

mason55 9y ago
Is there a possibility of improvements to the 787 that would get it from London to Sydney/Melbourne non-stop? Or is that route off the table until the next generation?
- ngoldbaum 9y ago
  There's speculation that the 797 will be able to do this.
- selectodude 9y ago
  They're getting close. Qantas is doing Perth to London on a 787-9 starting in March.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  Also, are there aircraft capable doing Auckland-Istanbul? Emirates/Qatar is a good hub, but not ideal for me.
  - fyfy18 9y ago
    That’s 10,600nmi on a great circle route. Most current and upcoming long range aircraft are around 1000nmi short of that. (http://www.gcmap.com/ http://www.gcmap.com/ is a good site to find the distance of great circle routes)

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Lets not forget the twin engine 777, which carries more passengers than a 787 and has taken over on long hauls. It basically started the end for the 747 in passenger service. I’ve been on an all economy 380 between Guangzhou and Beijing. Fun plane.

frik 9y ago
From a safety point of view, I take a 747 or A380 any day or a (now defunct Trijet) to a twin engine 777 or A350. Guess were flying hours over the open sea (Atlantic) is safer because of redundancy, the more engines the more can go out and it still can land. The 777 is way too crammed. The washrooms are on the side instead in the middle aka mini-washrooms (but with window). In general it feels like the first computer designed airframe, they forgot about the size of humans, it's made for short people. I take a 747 or even better A380 any day over the 777. I mean who seriously prefers to sit in a narrow long can for 12 hours, when you can choose a double decker A380 were you can stretch your legs, walk around and have big washrooms were you can stand even upright. And don't get me started on the entertainment system of the 777 - needs a serious upgrade. The 757 will go out of service next, United still has some 757 from the 1980s - sure the seats are super comfortable because in the 1980s the were bigger and softer, but the airframe is old and the entertainment system was added as addon, meaning a computer box is below every other seat and gives the unlucky guy (who doesn't know about seatguru) little leg room. Why is the very very odd 737 still going? It's older than the 747, I wonder when they finally design a new smaller airframe.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Airlines decide on their 777 interiors and entertainment centers, so your experience on a Delta 777 will be very different from an air Singapore one. The 777 was a huge advance in composites, which were continued in the 787. My gf at the time dad worked on the plane and was very proud of it. The 737 has been updated many times and Boeing hasn’t seen the need to introduce a completely new narrow body. It is still very successful, so I guess they are right. In contrast, the 767 was dying and needed replacing by the 787, it couldn’t be updated. The 747 is still in production and is very successful in freight and other applications. It isn’t going away anytime soon.

jcadam 9y ago

The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Somebody tell Delta. I'm sick of having to connect through Atlanta.

deleted 9y ago
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matthewmcg 9y ago
You don't find scrambling from concourse to concourse on our crowded plane train charming? Kidding, of course, but when you do live in the hub city it does make it much easier to get a direct flight to almost any destination.
- sweettea 9y ago
  The inter-terminal walk is actively enjoyable and de-stressing, particularly between A and B, and I don't understand why people don't default to walking instead of taking the plane train.
  - mynameisvlad 9y ago
    Yeah the greenery they added to the A-B walkway is downright cool. I was half excited to do the terminal hop last time I flew through ATL.
chiph 9y ago
You're not wrong. But Hartsfield-Jackson is an amazing machine.
dawnerd 9y ago
I do anything I can to avoid connecting through. Delta Using it as a test bed makes it very uncomfortable. Plastic seats, annoying boarding process people can’t seem to figure out, exposed ceiling (seriously it’s been well over a hear now), etc. I mean it’s not as bad as their new terminals at LAX but wow I have to rank it as one of my least favorite airports. I think I’m just spoiled by how nice PDX is.

saosebastiao 9y ago

> The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, even though it's almost entirely served by "small" 737/A320s: This is only true regionally or domestically. The hub and spoke model is more alive than ever on international routes. There are more direct routes today, but that is a consequence of having more hubs and more airlines, not because the airlines have figured out some advantage in point to point routes. For the long range widebody market, the largest planes don't save you much on fuel economy, even running full. A common saying in the industry is that it takes a lot of fuel to fly a lot of fuel; with fuel economy there are diminishing returns to aircraft size. Given they weren't saving much on fuel, the A380 and 747 only made sense at megahubs, because it reduced demand for landing and departure time slots. But the airlines responded to that problem in a different way: they increased the number of their hubs. This made them more flexible by not tying them into very expensive fleet decisions with new and unproven aircraft with hard staffing and infrastructural investments to go along with them, and it gives the advantage of having more direct routes.

njarboe 9y ago
"not because the airlines have figured out some advantage in point to point routes." Southwest has figured out the advantage. People want point to point and the profits and continued expansion of Southwest will hopefully clue the other airlines onto that fact. I fear the day when Southwest no longer has any competition and decides to convert over to a hub system to save on costs. Using current accounting methods, airlines see huge advantages in using a hub system. If they had to charge all the wasted time the hub system costs its passengers, they might see why Southwest keeps getting bigger and bigger. When looking to fly, I always sort for non-stops only and consider that as the price to fly to my destination (luckily I live in the Bay Area that has airport competition). Only when no non-stop flights exist, do I consider multiple stop flights.
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  As I said, that is only true regionally or domestically. Even then, Southwest has minihubs in order to connect the routes that don't have enough volume to justify direct flights. You can see this yourself: if you track their flight numbers, each "flight" is typically 3 to 4 legs, at least one of which is a southwest hub. For example, Seattle's only point to point route on Southwest is to San Jose where Seattle has a lot of cultural and business connections due to the tech industry. Anywhere else from Seattle is either direct because Southwest happens to operate a hub there, or it transfers through a hub. Unique to southwest (I'd say it's a strategic advantage, but only viable regionally) is the use of focus cities like Sacramento. These operate essentially as hubs, but aren't called hubs because they don't have maintenance operations there. Southwest's route planning model within regions is quite unique, and you can see how it works by tracking a flight number. Almost all of their regional flights are 3 leg flights: (Spoke -> Hub -> Focus City -> Spoke) or (Spoke -> Focus City -> Hub -> Spoke). This allows them to have lots of hubs (which allows for a lot of direct flights), while still allowing nearly all of their fleet to have access to a hub's maintenance operations, which is probably the most expensive part of operating a hub. This gives the popular illusion of having an extensive point to point network, but in reality nearly all flights connect to a hub or pseudo hub. There is absolutely no doubt that people prefer direct flights. Airlines running hubs have basically resigned themselves to the fact that if southwest opens a direct route between any of their non-hub cities, they've lost almost all of their non-frequent-flier customers on that specific city pairing to Southwest. That means that direct flights only make sense if there is enough volume on the specific corridor, and that only ever happens regionally, because that is where all the cultural and business connections are.

switch007 9y ago

> Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, And wow, the most hilariously-expensive business class fares it seems: USD $1,288 return (even including a Sat night stay) with Qantas. It's a 1hr25min flight. Luckily Virgin looks to be providing some tough competition...at $1,143.

jlangenauer 9y ago

SYD-SCL and SYD-PER-JNB are routes where Qantas needs a 4-engined plane because they are so far outside the ETOPS limits. But those are pretty extreme exceptions.

cjrp 9y ago
Is that still the case with newer ETOPS limits, e.g. ETOPS-370?

defo_nonconvex 9y ago

Are twins inherently more efficient per pax than quads? Wouldn't a quad plane just run at a lower thrust level per engine? Given that fan sizes and core temperatures are rammed up against difficult limits, I would've thought that quads could give a better bypass ratio (and hence efficiency) by reducing the core engine size and thrust requirement. Or do you mean operational efficiency...fewer parts to maintain, engineers, simpler plumbing etc? Probably less disturbance on the wing flow with 2 engines as well.