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The A380 is hardly flown by anyone, never mind US carriers. Airbus is likely going to end production if they can't land another large order in the next year or
by cc439 9y ago
The A380 is hardly flown by anyone, never mind US carriers. Airbus is likely going to end production if they can't land another large order in the next year or two. It's an amazing aircraft that just doesn't fit the modern market. Airbus read the preexisting market trends correctly when deciding to build the A380, hub airports were becoming incredibly crowded and increasing the passengers per plane seemed to be the obvious solution at the time. However, they didn't foresee the market reacting to overcrowding by paying a premium to fly out of smaller, more local airports.
My local airport is a perfect example of this. It has gone from hosting just single digit numbers of regularly scheduled flights a day, with all of them being ~20-30 minute connector flights to nearby hubs on regional jets, to hosting well over a dozen 737-sized flights each day. All of that has happened in just ~15 years and it's partially down to the growth of my area but also how dissatisfied passengers were with driving 90-120 minutes to the 2 nearby, overcrowded, oft delayed hubs. I held off from committing to using my local airport up until this year as the price difference was $200 or more, but demand has risen to the point that the difference has fallen to around $100. The convenience alone is a winner but the savings in parking alone make up a third of the difference even if I park at the airport instead of taking an uber.
Article: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/15/the-airbus-a380-is-dead-airbus-just-hasnt-admitted.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/15/the-airbus-a380-is...