6 ms·

The answers you have gotten so far are terrible. There is no discernible move to a "point to point" model in commercial aviation. That's a myth straight from Bo

by skgoa 9y ago

The answers you have gotten so far are terrible. There is no discernible move to a "point to point" model in commercial aviation. That's a myth straight from Boeing's marketing department. Instead, the reason the 747 and A380 sales have suffered is that the entire aviation industry has suffered from the tripple whammy of 9/11, the Global Financial Meltdown and high fuel prices. Both p2p and trunk routes saw massive shrinkage in passenger numbers for a while and strong growth in recent years. I.e. airlines couldn't even fill the flights they had, so they did not spend big money (that they didn't have either) on big airplanes. This has changed however. The 777, the newest version of which seats almost as many people as a 747 does, is selling very nicely. Since the A380 project is close to breaking even now and airlines have shown a willingness to discuss new sales, Airbus is almost ready to commit to a midlife upgrade. That doesn't sound like much, but it's a massive step up from just a few years ago. The reason the 747 is the only big airliner that just no one is interested in buying anymore is that it is an incredibly old design that was kept alive by the fact that it was the biggest commercial airliner on the market. The moment the A380 was announced, 747 sales started to taper off. Once the latest embiggening of the 777 was announced, there was just no raison d'être for the 747 anymore. Also, the claim that twin engine airliners are cheaper or more efficient than quads is a myth as well. The number of engines itself has nothing to do with it, because quads can generate the same amount of thrust with smaller engines than twins, making every engine cheaper. Upfront costs for airliners scale linearly with size (i.e. maximum take-off weight) and running costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) scale linearly with thrust. Both are independent of the number of engines, though larger airplanes that require more thrust tend to have a larger number of engines.

oconnor663 9y ago
The 737 is also an old design, right? Is there any particular reason that one has been modernized more than the 747?
- coredog64 9y ago
  Airlines buy a lot more 20 million dollar planes than they do of 140 million dollar planes. The installed base makes it like Windows. Sure, there are many flaws, but it's so cheap and easy to run most airlines don't care.
  - CaptainZapp 9y ago
    If you're talking new planes you're way off with those prices. The cheapest 737 went for an average price of 80.6M $. That's average and not the list price, which is higher. The most expensive Boeing offering was the 777-9 with an average price of 400M. [1] The Airbus prices I found with a brief search are from 2013 and range from 83.9M$ for the 319 (I didn't count the 318, since I've never ever seen it in operation) to 403.9M$ (A380-800). 140 million is pretty far away from getting you any new widebody plane from those companies. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273941/prices-of-boeing-aircraft-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273941/prices-of-boeing-... [2] http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2013/01/new-airbus-aircraft-list-prices-for-2013.html http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2013/01/new...
- TylerE 9y ago
  Not really. The 737 is sorta like the Porsche 911. Same name, same shape, almost a totally different plane under the skin. When the 737NG came out in the mid-90s (-600,-700,-800,-900) is was basically a brand new airplane. Now, 20 years, later, Boeing has just started deliveries of the new 737 MAX generation, which again brings substantial improvements.
- tallanvor 9y ago
  The number of passengers it seats is sort of a sweet spot, and even during bad times for the airlines, there are still plenty of routes that can maintain the numbers to make it viable to fly a 737. The 747 has a much more limited number of routes where it is viable, so there's less incentive for Boeing to spend money on it. But don't confuse the 737 of today with that of the original. There have been 3 major redesigns since the original (Classic, NG, and MAX), to the point where the MAX shares little more than the name with the original.
- skgoa 9y ago
  One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the 737 is slowly losing market share. Boeing had to lower the price significantly to generate sales, yet the 737's major draw for customers seems to be the sheer unavailability of A320 production slots in the near and medium term.
ricw 9y ago
One thing to add to this is that the a380 as well as 747-8 burn significantly more fuel per seat than their modern equivalent twin jets (a350 / 787). Last I checked the a380 burnt around 25-30% more fuel than a 787/a350. Putting more modern engines onto the a380 might give it another life line. So in short: no economies of scale vs twin jets plus it being hard to reliably fill such a large plane are stopping jumbo jets.
- willyt 9y ago
  The specific Rolls Royce engines used on the A380 were developed specially and were a leap in efficiency at the time the aircraft was introduced. The Dreamliner and A350 use engines that are of the same technological level, but the airframes are cheaper to operate because they are made from composites and so are 20-30% lighter per passenger.
ubernostrum 9y ago
No, the answers are pretty close to right. Regarding route models: Airbus bet big on airlines wanting to run long-haul service between existing congested megahubs, and built the A380 for that purpose. Think of routes like Hong Kong to London (which BA serves with an A380). With the 787, Boeing went the other way and bet on airlines wanting to expand service from their hubs to secondary or tertiary destinations. Boeing seems to have come out ahead on that; the number of megahubs is limited, and the A380 required expensive infrastructure to support. And airlines do seem to like using the 787 to serve places that aren't alpha-tier world cities. And the idea that more + smaller engines is as efficient is not accurate, either; modern jet engines gain their efficiency in large part from their bypass ratio, and for that bigger engines are better. The ability to certify high ETOPS numbers on twinjets, and the availability of larger, high-bypass-ratio engines, killed the trijet and is now killing the quadjet.
jasode 9y ago
> There is no discernible move to a "point to point" model in commercial aviation. That's a myth straight from Boeing's marketing department. But one doesn't have to just take Boeing's word for it. One can see the trend in the actual real-world routes. For example, you have Norwegian Airlines recently offering direct nonstop service from Oslo Norway to Orlando Florida on the 787.[1] Both Oslo and Orlando would be considered 2nd-tier population cities and that lower demand point-to-point route is made possible by the newer smaller planes. Before the ETOPS[2] rule changes, an airline had to use the 4-engine jumbo jets to get Norwegians in Europe to Disney World in America. To architect such a route, the airline would choose a prominent "gateway" city in Europe with a superhub such as London Heathrow LHR, or Paris France, or Frankfurt Germany. They then pick a gateway city in USA with a hub such as New York JFK or Atlanta Georgia. The route would then be something like Oslo-to-London-to-NewYork-to-Orlando. That type of hub-&-spoke route was what Airbus was counting on and it didn't happen. The Norwegian Airlines p2p route of Oslo-to-Orlando is a "lost sale" of an Airbus A380. >suffered from the tripple whammy of 9/11, But Airbus made their overly optimistic prediction of 1200 orders for the A380 in 2005 which was 4 years after 9/11 2001. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2015/03/norwegian-starts-daily-flights-to-orlando-from.html https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2015/03/norwegian-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  For example, you have Norwegian Airlines recently offering direct nonstop service from Oslo Norway to Orlando, Florida on the 787. I'd consider Norwegian a bad example since they position themselves as an ultra low cost carrier. The economics there are somewhat different in that they don't usually offer connecting flights via one of their hubs. Ryanair just recently and very tentatively even began offering connecting flights, but it's not necessarily their business model, which is no frills direct connections. As for major European hubs. Note that they are not necessarilly used by ULC carriers. I don't know if this is still the case, but when you took Ryanair to Barcelona you wound up in Girona and Stockholm wasn't really Stockholm. Second (or third or fourth) tier airports sometimes offer very attractive conditions to airlines just to get passengers, which make the attractive to ULC carriers.
CaptainZapp 9y ago
I've a question for you since you seem so knowledgeable on the subject. From my understanding the Airbus A330 and - A340 are pretty much the same plane, with the exception that the 340 has 4 engines and the 330 2. Assuming that the desing is pretty much the same (inlcuding capacity of the fuel tanks) why is the range of the 340 much farther then the one of the 330. This seems somehat counter intuitive so I was wondering. Alas, I'm pretty sure that I'm somehow guilty of wrong think here. I just wonder why.
- 51Cards 9y ago
  My understanding of the key difference between the 330 and the 340 is the maximum take-off weight and you can see the extra landing gear on 340 models due to this. MTOW being higher on the 340 allows it to carry more fuel even with a full cargo load which is the critical factor in the extended range. The 330 could achieve the same range if fully loaded with fuel but it couldn't do it with full cargo.
  - CaptainZapp 9y ago
    I didn't consider the additional fuel, which the 340 is capable of carrying upon take-off. Makes a lot of sense and thanks for the insight. Reminds me of another dirty, little aviation secret: An airline may bump you, despite the fact that the plane has empty seats. The reason, again, is take-off weight. It's a lot more profitable to load an additional container than you. Even considering costs like compensation, hotel rooms and even a rebooking to a different airline. The source for that is my sister, who worked ground handling for the (now defunct) Swissair.
    - njarboe 9y ago
      "(now defunct)" - Maybe that bumping strategy only works for short term profits.
    - 51Cards 9y ago
      That is an interesting one!
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
FabHK 9y ago
> running costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) scale linearly with thrust Interesting. Question: Both twin and quads have to be able to take off with one engine failed. Thus, under normal circumstances twins can deliver up to 200% of required power (times 1/2 = 100%), while quads deliver up to 133% (times 3/4 = 100%). If max thrust were a contributor to cost, quads could be cheaper than twins. However, common understanding seems to be that twins are cheaper. Can you elaborate on this myth?

by skgoa 9y ago

oconnor663 9y ago

The 737 is also an old design, right? Is there any particular reason that one has been modernized more than the 747?

coredog64 9y ago
Airlines buy a lot more 20 million dollar planes than they do of 140 million dollar planes. The installed base makes it like Windows. Sure, there are many flaws, but it's so cheap and easy to run most airlines don't care.
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  If you're talking new planes you're way off with those prices. The cheapest 737 went for an average price of 80.6M $. That's average and not the list price, which is higher. The most expensive Boeing offering was the 777-9 with an average price of 400M. [1] The Airbus prices I found with a brief search are from 2013 and range from 83.9M$ for the 319 (I didn't count the 318, since I've never ever seen it in operation) to 403.9M$ (A380-800). 140 million is pretty far away from getting you any new widebody plane from those companies. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273941/prices-of-boeing-aircraft-by-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273941/prices-of-boeing-... [2] http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2013/01/new-airbus-aircraft-list-prices-for-2013.html http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2013/01/new...
TylerE 9y ago
Not really. The 737 is sorta like the Porsche 911. Same name, same shape, almost a totally different plane under the skin. When the 737NG came out in the mid-90s (-600,-700,-800,-900) is was basically a brand new airplane. Now, 20 years, later, Boeing has just started deliveries of the new 737 MAX generation, which again brings substantial improvements.
tallanvor 9y ago
The number of passengers it seats is sort of a sweet spot, and even during bad times for the airlines, there are still plenty of routes that can maintain the numbers to make it viable to fly a 737. The 747 has a much more limited number of routes where it is viable, so there's less incentive for Boeing to spend money on it. But don't confuse the 737 of today with that of the original. There have been 3 major redesigns since the original (Classic, NG, and MAX), to the point where the MAX shares little more than the name with the original.
skgoa 9y ago
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the 737 is slowly losing market share. Boeing had to lower the price significantly to generate sales, yet the 737's major draw for customers seems to be the sheer unavailability of A320 production slots in the near and medium term.

ricw 9y ago

One thing to add to this is that the a380 as well as 747-8 burn significantly more fuel per seat than their modern equivalent twin jets (a350 / 787). Last I checked the a380 burnt around 25-30% more fuel than a 787/a350. Putting more modern engines onto the a380 might give it another life line. So in short: no economies of scale vs twin jets plus it being hard to reliably fill such a large plane are stopping jumbo jets.

willyt 9y ago
The specific Rolls Royce engines used on the A380 were developed specially and were a leap in efficiency at the time the aircraft was introduced. The Dreamliner and A350 use engines that are of the same technological level, but the airframes are cheaper to operate because they are made from composites and so are 20-30% lighter per passenger.

ubernostrum 9y ago

No, the answers are pretty close to right. Regarding route models: Airbus bet big on airlines wanting to run long-haul service between existing congested megahubs, and built the A380 for that purpose. Think of routes like Hong Kong to London (which BA serves with an A380). With the 787, Boeing went the other way and bet on airlines wanting to expand service from their hubs to secondary or tertiary destinations. Boeing seems to have come out ahead on that; the number of megahubs is limited, and the A380 required expensive infrastructure to support. And airlines do seem to like using the 787 to serve places that aren't alpha-tier world cities. And the idea that more + smaller engines is as efficient is not accurate, either; modern jet engines gain their efficiency in large part from their bypass ratio, and for that bigger engines are better. The ability to certify high ETOPS numbers on twinjets, and the availability of larger, high-bypass-ratio engines, killed the trijet and is now killing the quadjet.

jasode 9y ago

> There is no discernible move to a "point to point" model in commercial aviation. That's a myth straight from Boeing's marketing department. But one doesn't have to just take Boeing's word for it. One can see the trend in the actual real-world routes. For example, you have Norwegian Airlines recently offering direct nonstop service from Oslo Norway to Orlando Florida on the 787.[1] Both Oslo and Orlando would be considered 2nd-tier population cities and that lower demand point-to-point route is made possible by the newer smaller planes. Before the ETOPS[2] rule changes, an airline had to use the 4-engine jumbo jets to get Norwegians in Europe to Disney World in America. To architect such a route, the airline would choose a prominent "gateway" city in Europe with a superhub such as London Heathrow LHR, or Paris France, or Frankfurt Germany. They then pick a gateway city in USA with a hub such as New York JFK or Atlanta Georgia. The route would then be something like Oslo-to-London-to-NewYork-to-Orlando. That type of hub-&-spoke route was what Airbus was counting on and it didn't happen. The Norwegian Airlines p2p route of Oslo-to-Orlando is a "lost sale" of an Airbus A380. >suffered from the tripple whammy of 9/11, But Airbus made their overly optimistic prediction of 1200 orders for the A380 in 2005 which was 4 years after 9/11 2001. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2015/03/norwegian-starts-daily-flights-to-orlando-from.html https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2015/03/norwegian-s... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS

CaptainZapp 9y ago
For example, you have Norwegian Airlines recently offering direct nonstop service from Oslo Norway to Orlando, Florida on the 787. I'd consider Norwegian a bad example since they position themselves as an ultra low cost carrier. The economics there are somewhat different in that they don't usually offer connecting flights via one of their hubs. Ryanair just recently and very tentatively even began offering connecting flights, but it's not necessarily their business model, which is no frills direct connections. As for major European hubs. Note that they are not necessarilly used by ULC carriers. I don't know if this is still the case, but when you took Ryanair to Barcelona you wound up in Girona and Stockholm wasn't really Stockholm. Second (or third or fourth) tier airports sometimes offer very attractive conditions to airlines just to get passengers, which make the attractive to ULC carriers.

CaptainZapp 9y ago

I've a question for you since you seem so knowledgeable on the subject. From my understanding the Airbus A330 and - A340 are pretty much the same plane, with the exception that the 340 has 4 engines and the 330 2. Assuming that the desing is pretty much the same (inlcuding capacity of the fuel tanks) why is the range of the 340 much farther then the one of the 330. This seems somehat counter intuitive so I was wondering. Alas, I'm pretty sure that I'm somehow guilty of wrong think here. I just wonder why.

51Cards 9y ago
My understanding of the key difference between the 330 and the 340 is the maximum take-off weight and you can see the extra landing gear on 340 models due to this. MTOW being higher on the 340 allows it to carry more fuel even with a full cargo load which is the critical factor in the extended range. The 330 could achieve the same range if fully loaded with fuel but it couldn't do it with full cargo.
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  I didn't consider the additional fuel, which the 340 is capable of carrying upon take-off. Makes a lot of sense and thanks for the insight. Reminds me of another dirty, little aviation secret: An airline may bump you, despite the fact that the plane has empty seats. The reason, again, is take-off weight. It's a lot more profitable to load an additional container than you. Even considering costs like compensation, hotel rooms and even a rebooking to a different airline. The source for that is my sister, who worked ground handling for the (now defunct) Swissair.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    "(now defunct)" - Maybe that bumping strategy only works for short term profits.
  - 51Cards 9y ago
    That is an interesting one!
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

FabHK 9y ago

> running costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) scale linearly with thrust Interesting. Question: Both twin and quads have to be able to take off with one engine failed. Thus, under normal circumstances twins can deliver up to 200% of required power (times 1/2 = 100%), while quads deliver up to 133% (times 3/4 = 100%). If max thrust were a contributor to cost, quads could be cheaper than twins. However, common understanding seems to be that twins are cheaper. Can you elaborate on this myth?