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Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production
- mpweiher 9y agoPutting public pressure on Emirates, by Airbus's outgoing sales chief: "buy now or you won't be able to buy in the future" "Mr. Leahy, the Airbus chief operating officer, said on Monday that the A380’s best days were ahead. Passenger traffic is doubling every 15 years, he said, meaning that the original rationale for the model still holds." They just need to tide it over the lean years. EDIT: clarified what I meant with "pressure"
- 0xB31B1B 9y agoBut the smaller planes are more efficient and scale better.
- std_throwaway 9y agoMore efficient in what terms?
- matt4077 9y agoThere's a limit to scalability at airports, especially the big & busy ones in western metropolis: JFK, LHR, FRA. It's easy to build a new runway, or a new airport, in the desert, or when you can evict anyone in the way. But try doing in a country ruled by law, when the city has long engulfed the airport build in the 60s.
- skybrian 9y agoThere could be more hubs though. Pittsburgh was once a major hub. Could it come back again? Any other airports like that?
- dx034 9y agoIt currently looks like you'll get more direct connections and thus fewer hubs. Some routes will never be direct (rural US to rural Europe) but it's enough to have 1-2 hubs serving those. All major city connections can be direct. However, that will not necessarily reduce congestion for large airports, the NYC area then has to serve more destinations than before (by shifting away from hub traffic to LHR).
- txcwpalpha 9y agoThe scalability of airports is really only an issue at a select few airports, though. JFK and LHR are the big ones that come to mind. FRA and ORD are pretty congested as well. SFO might become extremely congested in the future as they don't have much room to expand. However, that's still only <10 airports in a world of thousands. Pretty much every major Asian airport (with the exception of Haneda) has tons of room to expand, and most are already doing so. Congestion is hardly an issue there. Even in the US, there are still airports with plenty of unused capacity: DFW, Denver, Dulles, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Detroit, etc have plenty of room to build new terminals and runways as needed. Even LAX and ATL are still sitting on plenty of land awaiting terminal expansion. And the same can be said for much of the small-medium sized airports in the US as well. The A380 is important to JFK and LHR slots, but I think it's much more likely that we see a the growth of alternate airports and more point-to-point travel than it is that the entire industry will make an about-face regarding the A380 just for the sake of a handful of airports.
- saryant 9y agoDenver's airport was built with ATL scale in mind. It's already the largest airport in the US by land size, nearly twice as large as the next airport on the list, which gives them tons of room to expand without needing to buy up neighboring plots. The airport already has six runways and the master plan calls for six more. Two of the three existing concourses can be lengthened to add more gates and the plan allows for four more concourses without needing to reconfigure runways. Last year the city approved a plan for 39 new gates. (In case you've ever wondered why taxiing at DEN takes forever, this is why)
- txcwpalpha 9y agoAye. It's a similar situation for DFW. The original master plan called for thirteen terminals (see pic [1]), not including the additional cargo terminals/ramps. It currently has 5, and although it will probably never expand to 13, there is enough land space for plenty of expansion. 1: https://airwaysmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/noahjeppson-copy.jpg https://airwaysmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/noahjeppso...
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- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> There's a limit to scalability at airports, especially the big & busy ones in western metropolis: JFK, LHR, FRA Between 30 and 40% of passengers departing from JFK or Newark will go on to a connection [1]. Switching to point-to-point travel means reducing traffic at these hubs. [1] https://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR_2015.pdf https://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR_2015.pdf
- dx034 9y agoFrankfurt is nowhere near runway capacity. They built another runway <10yrs ago for that reason. Munich is the only airport in Germany somewhat restricted by runway capacity at the moment.
- paulmd 9y agoAirport capacity scales with number of planes. Major airports are often running at capacity already and can't handle more planes. Increasing airport capacity is a very non-trivial problem. It's a tragedy-of-the-commons situation, like traffic congestion on a roadway.
- mschuster91 9y ago> Airport capacity scales with number of planes. There's another factor: these big-ass planes of A380 and alike produce a lot of wake turbulence - in fact, the A380 so much that it has its own strength category and its wake turbulences nearly shot another plane out of the sky (http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3 http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3). This means that an airport may dispatch more lighter planes in the same time than heavier planes.
- icebraining 9y agoThere's no tragedy of the commons; airport fees can and are raised, leading some companies to switch to nearby airports, like Ryanair is doing in Brussels (moving some flights to Charleroi). And as fees increase, so does the profit potential of building a new low-fees airport farther away.
- JshWright 9y agoThe other way to take pressure off airport capacity is to reduce use of the hub and spoke model. If you fly direct from Buffalo to Tampa, you don't need to take up a slot in Newark.
- jt2190 9y ago> Putting public pressure on Emirates, by Airbus's outgoing sales chief. Why is making a private conversation public like this a good sales strategy? (I'd argue that it would have the opposite effect by generating distrust.) I'd think "leaking" a conversation like this would be aimed at parties not directly privy to the talks.
- michaelt 9y agoMaking claims public can sometimes increase their credibility, because when you've told everyone, everyone will know if you break your word. Of course, it's debatable how much a CEO cares about being seen to break their word; it's not like Elon Musk suffers any negative consequences for announcing over-ambitious delivery dates. And it's hard to believe the embarrassment of ending production of your flagship plane would be smaller than the embarrassment of not doing that when you said you would.
- InTheArena 9y agoAirbus has never hit a single one of it's sales projections or traffic demands for the a380. They were supposed to ahve sold about 1500 frames by now. They wont in the future as well. Boeing kept the 747-8i alive to try and see if the traffic would eventually start shifting back to the super-jumbo, and it never did. If the traffic does eventually shift there, it will be the big twins (777/787/middle-of-the-market plane Boeing is working on now) and the A350 that benefit from it.
- mpweiher 9y agoIt seems to have worked. Two days later: "Superjumbo jet future secured by Emirates order" http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42732842 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42732842
- rdtsc 9y agoI like to use A380 as an analogy when a team works to perfect a product, adds lots of features, rewrites it a few times with the latest most buzzword-compliant technology, tests it until it is absolutely perfect, and ships it. ... Only to find out by that time the market has moved on and nobody wants to buy that kind of a thing anymore. Pretty sure that's a common theme for companies which end up on https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- matt4077 9y agoI'm quite happy the Airbus hasn't adopted "move fast an break things" yet. Because those "things" would possibly include my femur.
- mschuster91 9y agoThe problem is that you cannot simply ship a not "absolutely perfect" plane. Or, actually, it's not a problem but a blessing given that there were no commercial flight related fatalities in the USA in 2017 (per http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-20180102-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-201801...). No doubt: Without the drastic levels of regulation the FAA (and JAA) impose on civilian flight, fatalities would be orders of magnitude higher.
- theGimp 9y agoCheap shot, but I'll take it. All 14 days of 2018? :)
- civilitty 9y agoIt's actually been six years of no fatalities.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoThe article said in 2017, probably a typo on the poster's side. The article is about Trump trying to take credit for this (as he always does), when it is actually the 6th straight year without fatalities. Politically speaking, we are living in dark times even if aviation is super safe.
- joezydeco 9y agoIf you follow @FakeUnitedJeff (United CEO parody account, but obviously an insider), he said this today: "I predict Airbus will abandon the A380 soon and the type will phase out of non-Mideast 3 as they hit their first major maintenance check or lease end." Worth nothing that the first A380 to enter passenger service just finished its 10-year lease to Singapore Airlines. SA chose to return the plane. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-08/parked-in-the-pyrenees-an-a380-awaits-new-owner-or-scrapyard https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-08/parked-in...
- MBCook 9y agoAre most planes leased? Do the manufacturers try to resell them when they come off lease or are they inspected to be used for parts for repair?
- Alupis 9y agoMost aircraft of that size are leased new - and then re-leased or sold to budget carriers.[1] New models come out and the airline may want to switch/upgrade, and it's a lot of capital tied up in one aircraft if they were to purchase them outright. [1] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/2374/2294 https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/2374/2294
- joezydeco 9y agoThis Quora answer is a good resource too: https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-airplane-leasing-business-work-Why-do-airlines-buy-the-planes-then-sell-them-to-a-leasing-company-and-then-lease-it-back https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-airplane-leasing-business... The TLDR is that leasing allows the airline a lot more flexibility in acquiring aircraft (and returning them if demand changes). It's cheaper to break the lease than try to sell a used aircraft on the open market. In the case of A380, it's probably keeping a few airlines out of bankruptcy.
- kgwgk 9y agoThey are not leased by the manufacturers but by aircraft leasing companies like AerCap and GECAS.
- double0jimb0 9y agoInterning at Boeing in 2005, when the Dreamliner was still 2-3 years away from production, I asked a BD manager if Boeing was worried about A380 (the burning question at the time was "Who is going to win, A380/Airbus or Dreamliner/Boeing"). Without pause, he said "Not worried at all, A380 serves the hub and spoke model, which is dying. People hate layovers, they want more direct flights." Not a hard insight to grasp, and one which seems to have doomed A380 from the start.
- rurban 9y agoBut this is also the Dubai business model. Nobody wants to stay there, it's just a convenient stop. With more direct flights Dubai will also die. Also the EU is strongly behind this project. This is more than just Airbus or Emirates. So I see no death of the A380, even if the market moved on since.
- dx034 9y agoDubai won't die but the region won't need 3 super-hubs anymore (DOH, DXB, AUH).
- pkaye 9y agoIt is not a obvious insight to grasp since airlines take a strategy that makes them the most money and passengers are cost sensitive. Wasn't this the driving force behind the hum and spoke model?
- double0jimb0 9y agoPassengers are cost AND travel-time/hassle sensitive. It appears Airbus didn't place enough value into the "travel-time/hassle" part. More detail: the Dreamliner is 20% more efficient than previous generation planes. This allowed airlines to "break" the major hubs into many quicker/easier direct flights at a price that passengers are willing to pay. Boeing bet increasing value in this manner was superior than Airbus's bet to simply make hubs cheaper to operate.
- bsaul 9y agoNot sure airplane not selling is really the core issue. Someone working closely with airbus management once told me the real problem with that plane was that they allowed way too much customization of the interiors. No two planes would end up being the same, and so the costs of building the plane weren’t easily going down after some time. The end result was that airbus is actually loosing money on each plane they sell. That may be the real reason they would stop production IMHO.
- seedless_sensat 9y agoAs per the article, efficiencies of scale don't matter if you book zero sales in a year.
- zerkten 9y agoI'm not sure I buy that reason, unless the customization cost extends to the equipment and process for building out the interior. Surely this cost would be identified and then the options available reduced? But much harder, if your need to retool for a cheaper interior.
- coredog64 9y agoAround 1995, Boeing had a HUGE project to address this (DCAC/MRM). I wasn't deep in the project, but the stories I heard were crazy. Something like 30 shades of white paint, or parts that were functionally the same having two or more part numbers. The one thing that has stuck with me is the statement that you can't undrill a hole. It was the same thing the parent poster mentioned: Every operator wanted their galley/lavatory to be in some Goldilocks location, and that required drilling holes. Boeing pushed hard to limit the choices in order to bring cost down. Those holes also caused problems if a customer resequenced or walked away from a partially built plane. Southwest would want a discount if you were selling them a plane that was originally kitted out for someone else.
- Simulacra 9y agoIt's an amazing aircraft, and quite comfortable, but I feel like Airbus went for size rather than Innovation.
- jedberg 9y agoWhat a shame. The best flying experience I've ever had was coach on an A380 from SFO to Frankfurt. It was the only time I arrived feeling awake and fresh. The air felt cleaner, the lighting was great, and it was so smooth. I get why it isn't popular, but it's just too bad. I really liked flying on one.
- keymone 9y agothis so much. same connection.
- 627467 9y agoI recently flew a 787 for first time and felt it provided a similar spacious experience to A380. Ceiling space and the large windows seems to help that experience. I'd still hate to see jumbo jets (specially A380) to disappear.
- AGoodName 9y agoBoth the A380 and 787 have higher internal cabin pressures (equivalent of 6000ft). All other planes operate at lower pressure. Anything above 6000ft leads to altitude sickness for those who live at ~0ft. https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2017/01/18/jet-lag-altitude-sickness-dehydration/96677564/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2017/...
- brunnsbe 9y agoYou forgot the A350, which is also mentioned in the article.
- InTheArena 9y agoThis is really good marketing but not really true. A recent study of pressurization found that 747s tend to be operated at lower pressurization the a380s (which are typically run a bit higher then their rates). Almost 1k feet IIRC. What makes a huge huge difference is humidity. I get off a Denver to narita 787 feeling like it was a long Colorado to California flight, whereas a SFO to Narita flight on a 380 or 747 wrecks me.
- deanCommie 9y agoCan someone with a better understanding of economics than me explain something: How is the "point to point" (direct short flights via Ryanair and the like) beating "hub and spoke"(hubs like London and Frankfurt)? I don't mean for convenience - obviously it's nicer to not have layovers. But I mean economically. In the last 10 years, fuel prices have only gone up, as has environmental awareness, and the A380 is surely cheaper per passenger than a plane half it's size. So shouldn't flights via hubs be significantly cheaper and be the most popular?
- SkyMarshal 9y agoNot an economist, but it may b/c point-to-point can be made cheap enough (vis-a-vis Ryan Air, EasyJet, etc) that customers will choose that service over hub-and-spoke any time their itinerary allows it.
- crooked-v 9y agoA lot of people value "not having to make a layover" more than you think.
- saryant 9y agoJet fuel prices are half what they were ten years ago: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_refoth_dcu_nus_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_refoth_dcu_nus_a.htm Prices peaked in 2008, dropped during the recession, reached that peak again in 2011 and are now even lower than they were during the worst days of the GFC.
- deanCommie 9y agoWhoa that's shocking, why is this?
- saryant 9y agoCrude oil prices tanked over the last ten years. Mostly a combination of OPEC ramping up production and the rise of the American frackers.
- peterjlee 9y agoHere's a relevant video from Wendover productions explaining why Boeing 787 is doing better than A380. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlIdzF1_b5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlIdzF1_b5M
- adjkant 9y agoThis was super helpful in laying it out and surprisingly worth the time.
- kristofferR 9y agoThat's Wendover for you. All his air travel videos are great.
- dx034 9y agoHe's really good but often overly bullish on Boeing. Just because B787 and A380 were developed at the same time doesn't make them comparable. He nearly ignores the A321LR (which is successful because of the new model) and somewhat downplays that the B747-8 (the actual competitor to A380) isn't doing well either. Boeing didn't invest as much money in the B748 so it's not as severe but comparing the A380 with B787 is misleading.
- m3kw9 9y agoOne of the first Aircrafts to get rid of most CAN buses and use Ethernet for internal comm.
- tuna-piano 9y agoOne interesting point, about airports being at capacity. A third runway at London Heathrow is estimated to cost roughly the same as the entire A380 program! In a world where an additional runway (at the most congested airport) costs as much as creating a futuristic gigantic airplane from scratch, maybe it's not that crazy? (Not sure how the additional spacing and other costs with the A380 add into this, but still interesting to think about). An additional runway at London Heathrow Airport will cost $20B USD [1]. The A380 development costs are estimated between $17B-$28B USD [2]. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42399840 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42399840 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#Total_development_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#Total_development_...
- Gibbon1 9y agoReminds me, got called for mentioning the cost of expanding California's airports as a justification for California's high speed rail. Combining the two would make more sense, meaning put the airport farther away where land is cheap and the flights won't annoy people and run passengers too and from via a high speed shuttle. Bonus you can put security on the pickup side of the rail line.
- ant6n 9y agoPut security inside the damn train and we'll talk.
- petecox 9y agoI'm not sure on the train but Spain has security scans at railway departures for long distance rail. Not as stringent as for an international aeroplane flight but, given the investment, in theory it could be.
- ant6n 9y agoSecurity theatre for trains? Then it's not a train no more, but just an airplane that doesn't fly.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- InTheArena 9y agoThere are a lot of great books on the founding, planning, engineering and delivering the A380. All of them come to one painful conclusion - the A380 was driven more by politics and enabled by launch aid, rather then by real market need. Airbus has seen the effect of the Arbus 300, Boeing 767 and Boeing 757 in the transatlantic market and knew that large twins capable of going trans-pacific (777 and 787) would similarly fragment pacfic markets. But it was worth it to the EU project, especially in the heady millennium world when it was planned, to have it as a prestige project, and the market would be solid enough, if not as large as Leahy and others were projecting. People forget because of the debacle of the 787's engineering, but A380 had massive engineering problems - not with the fundamentals (the 747 was the worlds first double decker, first widebody - and the A380 was only a marginal capacity over the 747) but rather in that they had a lot of political problems, configuration errors, etc. The 787 still hasn't shown a profit (but it will) the A380 will never do so, even if EK does order a new plane. Finally, Emirates Airline (EK) is in a pickle here. They have a unbelievable percentage of the overall A380 frames. Airbus ending the program plane will result in the resale value of the A380s simnifically depreciating. EK saw this coming a while ago and moves most of their orders over to leasing, but Airbus has EK in a unenviable position here.
- _0nac 9y agoWell, it goes both ways: EK, being essentially a monopsony customer, is also in a great place to squeeze more concessions from Airbus. That's why the two sides are currently engaged in a game of chicken, with EK pulling what seemed like a done deal at the last Dubai airshow ("too expensive, lower your price!") and Airbus now making rumbling noises about cancelling production entirely ("price is too low, no plane for you!").
- InTheArena 9y agoIt does. It's the banking debt problem. When you owe the bank money, you have a problem. When you owe the bank a lot of money, they have a problem.
- strong_silent_t 9y agoWould you recommend a book on the planning?
- ggm 9y agoI am a frequent business flyer, 10+ per year international long haul from Australia. I appreciate that from a north american perspective the 380 didn't make sense either economically from the economy which bankrolls Boeing, or strategically from the economy which has specific interests in international flights homed out of its east and west coast population centres. I can tell you that for the South Pacific, Japan, India, China the 380 makes perfect sense, and if passenger disposable income choices can direct to 380 flights in preference to current generation 777 and 787, they will. I know, because within limits I can do this, and I do, and almost everyone I know who flies transcontinental at this frequency or better does too. You're mainly discussing supply side logic around wet leasing, dry leasing, models of operation. I am talking about what the consumer side actually wants: In business, its not 11 abreast pack-em-in which is what the 787 has done. Its not the 777 which is a fine beast, but noisy as hell and getting old (refit costs) We love the 380. We prefer to fly the 380. I've flown it on Emirates, Singapore, QANTAS, China Southern and its a premium quality experience. Its worth it.
- EdwardDiego 9y agoI'm the same, I fly NZ -> DE often and I will choose my flights to get the A380 over the 777 or 787.
- HeavenFox 9y agoI find it really hard to agree with you. Maybe you flew exclusively in business or first class? > its not 11 abreast pack-em-in which is what the 787 has done 787 is designed for 8-abreast seating. In reality, carriers almost always went for 9-abreast. 11-abreast is physically impossible. It is possible in an A380 though, and airlines are really considering it. > ... and its a premium quality experience How is flying on an A380 premium experience? When you pack more people in the same plane, boarding and deplaning takes longer, food and beverage service takes longer, getting checked luggage takes longer, and the immigration queue gets longer. There's a higher chance a crying baby will be there to ruin your sleep, and I really hate the curvature of the fuselage, which makes it impossible to rest my head against it. Yes, I'd pick a Singapore A380 over a United 787, but it has nothing to do with the type of the plane. It's a soft product problem.
- detuur 9y agoIn my personal opinion Airbus needed the A380 to break Boeing's cash cow. The 747 was basically a running money tap at the time the A380 was conceived, and in order to level the playing field, Airbus needed to kill that cow. It's one of the weird strokes of economics where the company has to act against its own short-term interests, in order to create a long-term advantage (or rather, prevent a long-term disadvantage). Additionally, now they have the tooling, supply lines, know-how, and IP to work at this extra large scale. While this might not translate into profit short-term, it could very well prove to be an interesting long-term asset again. I think in particular this is going to be interesting for them when the middle class of China and India (or Bangladesh) boom, and very heavily trafficked routes pop-up between heavily populated urban centres.
- jpatokal 9y agoDelhi-Mumbai and Shanghai-Beijing are already in the world's top 10 busiest routes, but AFAIK there is no regular A380 service on either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...
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- seanmcdirmid 9y agoBeijing to Guangzhou has 380 service via China Southern. Beijing to shanghai isn’t that far, and is better served by more-often service to compete with high speed trains that are also viable. China Eastern even has an express desk for shanghai flights and they are given priority to prevent all too common Beijing delays.
- dingo_bat 9y agoAFAIK Delhi-Mumbai is served almost completely by A320s and 737s. I doubt most people traveling on that route could afford a 787 or A380 flight.
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- reacweb 9y agoI am impressed. Most of the HN comments are praise, but A380 is failing because of airlines strategical choice of avoiding hub. Is again the best technical solution killed by intense lobbying ?
- dx034 9y agoAll modern planes are similarly advanced. B787 and A350 are as well. A380 is just better known so that more people have flown with it. It's certainly not the best technical solution (designed for larger size which makes it inefficient). Many passengers love it because it's so huge but that doesn't help airlines. Same as with comfort in economy, people like to complain about standards but still end up booking the cheapest flight.
- jk2323 9y agoMost comments about the A380 here are US-centered. 1. The A380 can be upgraded and can be made more fuel efficient. But this is an investment Airbus would have to made. 2. The hub model is not dead. There are major hubs that are dying (Singapore and Hongkong), there are current major hubs UAE, Moscow (Asia<>EU), Istanbul and there are coming major hubs (Addis Abbeba (EU, Asia <>Afica), potentially Tehran (geostrategic location, cheap oil, huge inner market, if they open up). At least if I look at it from China. Especially from huge markets with price sensitive customers like India and China, I predict that the A380 could have a future. I think the Airbus CEO once said "This plane come 10 years too early".
- koyote 9y agoChina also has a couple potential hubs as seen from Europe. China Southern (which flies A380 via CAN) and Air China (one of very few 747-8 operators) often have the cheapest flights to Asia these days.
- jk2323 9y agoYes, of cause. The new China hubs (giant market, gov backed) are the reasons for the Downfall of HK and SG. (tiny market, geolocation not great). https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-19/ominous-fading-of-air-power-in-hong-kong-and-singapore https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-01-19/ominous...