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There 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

There 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 ago
Well, 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 ago
  It 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 ago
Would you recommend a book on the planning?
sho 9y ago
> The 787 still hasn't shown a profit (but it will) I would say that's yet to be seen. Last I heard they're still making a loss on every plane, something like $28B in the hole with no end in sight. But it's a simplistic measurement anyway - obviously they will be able to use their learnings from that program in future projects, just as Airbus will. Luckily both manufacturers have incredibly profitable narrowbody lines to keep the lights on. Remember the 380 project was what finally forced Airbus to become a proper integrated company rather than a weird conglomerate of disparate working groups in different countries. I don't think anyone would disagree the project will never recoup its costs but an argument could be made that for the company as a whole it was worth it. You could make similar arguments for the 787 project too - both are indeed extremely interesting endeavours at multiple levels.
dx034 9y ago
Is the loss for Airbus really so dramatic? Maybe having a complete line-up and being prepared in case demand had developed differently made it worth having this loss. Car manufacturers also don't run all models at a profit but still need a full line-up to retain customers. I don't think it's that different for airlines. Airbus makes their money with A320 (plus some from A330 and maybe at some point A350).

_0nac 9y ago

Well, 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 ago
It 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 ago

Would you recommend a book on the planning?

sho 9y ago

> The 787 still hasn't shown a profit (but it will) I would say that's yet to be seen. Last I heard they're still making a loss on every plane, something like $28B in the hole with no end in sight. But it's a simplistic measurement anyway - obviously they will be able to use their learnings from that program in future projects, just as Airbus will. Luckily both manufacturers have incredibly profitable narrowbody lines to keep the lights on. Remember the 380 project was what finally forced Airbus to become a proper integrated company rather than a weird conglomerate of disparate working groups in different countries. I don't think anyone would disagree the project will never recoup its costs but an argument could be made that for the company as a whole it was worth it. You could make similar arguments for the 787 project too - both are indeed extremely interesting endeavours at multiple levels.

dx034 9y ago

Is the loss for Airbus really so dramatic? Maybe having a complete line-up and being prepared in case demand had developed differently made it worth having this loss. Car manufacturers also don't run all models at a profit but still need a full line-up to retain customers. I don't think it's that different for airlines. Airbus makes their money with A320 (plus some from A330 and maybe at some point A350).