11 ms·

Great news. That should keep the A380 alive long enough to clearly see how the airplane market is developing. Currently, its all about 2-engined airplanes, but

by _ph_ 9y ago

Great news. That should keep the A380 alive long enough to clearly see how the airplane market is developing. Currently, its all about 2-engined airplanes, but I cannot believe, that there is no need for the large airplanes like 747 and the A380. The amount of air travel is still growing year over year and once the production is shut down, it would means a certain class of airplanes is just unavailable.

candiodari 9y ago
The problem is not technical. The problem is government. You have 2 types of aircraft carriers: direct and hub-and-spoke. Direct means that they either have a direct flight between A and B, or have no way to get from A to B at all (in most cases, of course no carrier is 100% hub or 100% direct). Since A and B tend to be routes like Marseille to New York there aren't going to be enough passengers to fill an A380, so smaller more efficient airplanes are where it's at. In short: Big, huge airplanes make sense for hub-and-spoke carriers and don't for direct carriers. Small airplanes, lots of them, make sense for direct carriers. For consumers, the difference is twofold. Direct carriers are faster, and they will be more expensive, because a number of costs can't be shared between as many passengers as in the hub networks. Hub carriers are slower, but a (lot) cheaper. But that doesn't even really matter. Governments have decided that most airports won't be upgraded to support more planes and/or more passengers. This has resulted in airports that would normally be hub airports, like London, Paris or New York aren't hubs, because they are incredibly oversubscribed. For the same reason they become very expensive, very slow, and generally bad for passengers. But there is no competition, because only the government can approve airports, and they don't. This means that unless you're a carrier that happens to be in a location where such government concerns don't exist, like in the UAE where the government is the carrier and doesn't care about the local population at all, you can't have a hub network. So superjumbo's are threatened. Despite, of course, the market clearly pointing out that the cheaper flight almost always wins, if it's up to the customers, and therefore hub networks should win. I would say that therefore it is pretty correct to say that customers want A380s. But governments are standing in the way. For no good reason. But governments have decided that having everyone pay significantly more for every flight, and generally have an utterly awful experience flying is absolutely worth it. After all, the alternatives would mean slightly more work for them ...
- _ph_ 9y ago
  Things aren't just black and white. London and Paris, also Frankfurt are partially hub airports. Many long-distance flights from Europe will relay via those airports. Additionally you have direct flights. And with the raising passenger counts, there is a need for large airplanes on point-to-point connections too. Of course only on the important ones, but there is a need. A shortage in runway capacity also limits the amount of flights you can have from an airport, so to raise the capacity, you have to go bigger too. Right now, there is obviously no large demand for the A380, but I could see how that changes again - especially once the 747s in use got retired.
- Chriky 9y ago
  It must be cool to be a Libertarian because you are an immediate expert at everything.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    That was a detailed comment that didn't say "government is bad." It laid out a pretty reasonable interpretation of why that decision might have taken place, including quite clearly pointing out that some governments care less about the effects of airports on local populations, which could explain why some markets still have hub airports. It definitely tallies with the impression I have – looking at London Heathrow, for example, where the controversy about expanding the airport has been rumbling on for an age, and governments are consistently jittery about taking an obvious view on it. I'd say there are pretty good reasons for avoiding expansion, but obviously this other comment disagrees. There's nothing here that screams "libertarian," just a possibly inaccurate, but hardly unreasonable, point of view.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      > that didn't say "government is bad." Yet it did start with "The problem is government".
      - maehwasu 9y ago
ubernostrum 9y ago
While demand for air travel is growing, the demand is in the wrong places. First of all, you have to remember that on long-haul, the front cabins pay for the flight; if you scale the plane up without also scaling up the number of people buying premium-cabin tickets, you lose money. Emirates runs around 50 premium seats in their 777s, and 60-80 in their A380s depending on configuration. That should tell you something about whether the premium demand scales up with the economy-class demand (it doesn't). Second, there still just aren't enough places on earth that can fill a 500-seat (or even 600-seat as Emirates is experimenting with on their latest configuration) plane every day. It's a cliché to say it at this point, but: Airbus bet big on people flying mainly between megahubs, and that bet failed. Much of the expansion of commercial flying has been to secondary or tertiary destinations that aren't going to fill an A380-sized plane. Which means either flying the plane with a bunch of empty seats (which loses money) or not flying it every day (which loses money). You may not like it, but the more reasonably-sized twinjets won. 250-350 seats is the sweet spot, and the future belongs to 777s, 787s, A350s and their descendants.
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  "First of all, you have to remember that on long-haul, the front cabins pay for the flight; if you scale the plane up without also scaling up the number of people buying premium-cabin tickets, you lose money." Singapore airlines has a full upper deck business class configuration. More space just means you have more space for business and first class too. "Second, there still just aren't enough places on earth that can fill a 500-seat (or even 600-seat as Emirates is experimenting with on their latest configuration)" While I'd agree that there are not that many business cases for such a huge plane there definitely are. Especially in the case of mega connectors like Emirates. Emirates offers two daily flights from Zurich, which is a European 2nd tier airport with just shy of 30M yearly passengers, while Singapore airlines compressed their two daily flights into one A380 flight a day. "You may not like it, but the more reasonably-sized twinjets won. 250-350 seats is the sweet spot, and the future belongs to 777s, 787s, A350s and their descendants." We'll see when Asian airports (especially in China) run out of runway capacity. There are only so many flights you can dispatch over a runway in any given time.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
As a passenger I'd choose 787 in a eye blink - comfort of higher pressure and better air is making a huge difference.
- ulfw 9y ago
  A380 and 787 both pressurise around 6000ft height equivalent as opposed to 8000ish on older planes.
  - dzhiurgis 9y ago
    Welp, didn't knew that. Air quality is still an issue tho.
    - ulfw 9y ago
      Agreed. Humidity is higher on A380 than 777 though not as good as on A350 or 787. Some airlines use humidifiers on other aircraft (Lufthansa on the 747-8i in First/Biz only)
      - raverbashing 9y ago
        > Some airlines use humidifiers on other aircraft (Lufthansa on the 747-8i in First/Biz only) Really? Won't this affect the airframe? (humidity is low for a reason)
        ceejayoz 9y ago
        If humidity in the cabin affects the airframe that much, Singapore Airlines is already screwed.
        ulfw 9y ago
        I recommend Joseph's answer here: https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-engineers-fix-the-low-level-of-humidity-in-planes-during-flights https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-engineers-fix-the-low-level-o...
- 9y ago

by _ph_ 9y ago

candiodari 9y ago

The problem is not technical. The problem is government. You have 2 types of aircraft carriers: direct and hub-and-spoke. Direct means that they either have a direct flight between A and B, or have no way to get from A to B at all (in most cases, of course no carrier is 100% hub or 100% direct). Since A and B tend to be routes like Marseille to New York there aren't going to be enough passengers to fill an A380, so smaller more efficient airplanes are where it's at. In short: Big, huge airplanes make sense for hub-and-spoke carriers and don't for direct carriers. Small airplanes, lots of them, make sense for direct carriers. For consumers, the difference is twofold. Direct carriers are faster, and they will be more expensive, because a number of costs can't be shared between as many passengers as in the hub networks. Hub carriers are slower, but a (lot) cheaper. But that doesn't even really matter. Governments have decided that most airports won't be upgraded to support more planes and/or more passengers. This has resulted in airports that would normally be hub airports, like London, Paris or New York aren't hubs, because they are incredibly oversubscribed. For the same reason they become very expensive, very slow, and generally bad for passengers. But there is no competition, because only the government can approve airports, and they don't. This means that unless you're a carrier that happens to be in a location where such government concerns don't exist, like in the UAE where the government is the carrier and doesn't care about the local population at all, you can't have a hub network. So superjumbo's are threatened. Despite, of course, the market clearly pointing out that the cheaper flight almost always wins, if it's up to the customers, and therefore hub networks should win. I would say that therefore it is pretty correct to say that customers want A380s. But governments are standing in the way. For no good reason. But governments have decided that having everyone pay significantly more for every flight, and generally have an utterly awful experience flying is absolutely worth it. After all, the alternatives would mean slightly more work for them ...

_ph_ 9y ago
Things aren't just black and white. London and Paris, also Frankfurt are partially hub airports. Many long-distance flights from Europe will relay via those airports. Additionally you have direct flights. And with the raising passenger counts, there is a need for large airplanes on point-to-point connections too. Of course only on the important ones, but there is a need. A shortage in runway capacity also limits the amount of flights you can have from an airport, so to raise the capacity, you have to go bigger too. Right now, there is obviously no large demand for the A380, but I could see how that changes again - especially once the 747s in use got retired.
Chriky 9y ago
It must be cool to be a Libertarian because you are an immediate expert at everything.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  That was a detailed comment that didn't say "government is bad." It laid out a pretty reasonable interpretation of why that decision might have taken place, including quite clearly pointing out that some governments care less about the effects of airports on local populations, which could explain why some markets still have hub airports. It definitely tallies with the impression I have – looking at London Heathrow, for example, where the controversy about expanding the airport has been rumbling on for an age, and governments are consistently jittery about taking an obvious view on it. I'd say there are pretty good reasons for avoiding expansion, but obviously this other comment disagrees. There's nothing here that screams "libertarian," just a possibly inaccurate, but hardly unreasonable, point of view.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    > that didn't say "government is bad." Yet it did start with "The problem is government".
    - maehwasu 9y ago

ubernostrum 9y ago

While demand for air travel is growing, the demand is in the wrong places. First of all, you have to remember that on long-haul, the front cabins pay for the flight; if you scale the plane up without also scaling up the number of people buying premium-cabin tickets, you lose money. Emirates runs around 50 premium seats in their 777s, and 60-80 in their A380s depending on configuration. That should tell you something about whether the premium demand scales up with the economy-class demand (it doesn't). Second, there still just aren't enough places on earth that can fill a 500-seat (or even 600-seat as Emirates is experimenting with on their latest configuration) plane every day. It's a cliché to say it at this point, but: Airbus bet big on people flying mainly between megahubs, and that bet failed. Much of the expansion of commercial flying has been to secondary or tertiary destinations that aren't going to fill an A380-sized plane. Which means either flying the plane with a bunch of empty seats (which loses money) or not flying it every day (which loses money). You may not like it, but the more reasonably-sized twinjets won. 250-350 seats is the sweet spot, and the future belongs to 777s, 787s, A350s and their descendants.

CaptainZapp 9y ago
"First of all, you have to remember that on long-haul, the front cabins pay for the flight; if you scale the plane up without also scaling up the number of people buying premium-cabin tickets, you lose money." Singapore airlines has a full upper deck business class configuration. More space just means you have more space for business and first class too. "Second, there still just aren't enough places on earth that can fill a 500-seat (or even 600-seat as Emirates is experimenting with on their latest configuration)" While I'd agree that there are not that many business cases for such a huge plane there definitely are. Especially in the case of mega connectors like Emirates. Emirates offers two daily flights from Zurich, which is a European 2nd tier airport with just shy of 30M yearly passengers, while Singapore airlines compressed their two daily flights into one A380 flight a day. "You may not like it, but the more reasonably-sized twinjets won. 250-350 seats is the sweet spot, and the future belongs to 777s, 787s, A350s and their descendants." We'll see when Asian airports (especially in China) run out of runway capacity. There are only so many flights you can dispatch over a runway in any given time.

dzhiurgis 9y ago

As a passenger I'd choose 787 in a eye blink - comfort of higher pressure and better air is making a huge difference.

ulfw 9y ago
A380 and 787 both pressurise around 6000ft height equivalent as opposed to 8000ish on older planes.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  Welp, didn't knew that. Air quality is still an issue tho.
  - ulfw 9y ago
    Agreed. Humidity is higher on A380 than 777 though not as good as on A350 or 787. Some airlines use humidifiers on other aircraft (Lufthansa on the 747-8i in First/Biz only)
    - raverbashing 9y ago
      > Some airlines use humidifiers on other aircraft (Lufthansa on the 747-8i in First/Biz only) Really? Won't this affect the airframe? (humidity is low for a reason)
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        If humidity in the cabin affects the airframe that much, Singapore Airlines is already screwed.
      - ulfw 9y ago
        I recommend Joseph's answer here: https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-engineers-fix-the-low-level-of-humidity-in-planes-during-flights https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-engineers-fix-the-low-level-o...
9y ago