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>Early copies of a new plane tend to be less efficient and Singapore Airlines recently ordered some new A380s. However, overall demand is thinner than Airbus ex

>Early copies of a new plane tend to be less efficient and Singapore Airlines recently ordered some new A380s. However, overall demand is thinner than Airbus expected, forcing it to slow production to a trickle while looking for more business. Boeing had sales difficulties with 787 aircraft early in the production run due to excess weight among other issues. [0] The rest of the article makes it seem this does not apply to the A380s in question, so it's more a reflection of weak market demand. The problem of reselling customized planes is an interesting issue--so far as I know Boeing 747s did not have the problem. This seems unique to the A380. [0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/boeing-sells-overweight-terrible-teen-dreamliners/article23190304/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/internati...

Arnt 8y ago
The A380 did have weight and other issues early on. The A380s that are being broken up were replaced with new ones (Singapore Airlines leased five early A380s for ten years, when the lease was ended they didn't renew, but instead bought five new ones from Airbus).
ak217 8y ago
Boeing did go out of their way to make sure those "change incorporation" frames ended up in working condition and flying with customers. This spreadsheet shows what happened: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI5Pd-15rsJ1a0SFCRaT-iqgo/edit#gid=2 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI... - look at the dates in the "Load"/"Delivered" columns up to LN 19. LN 10 spent almost 8 years before entering revenue service. In Airbus's case, the equivalent might be to buy back the frames and place them with customers at a subsidy. There's definitely a marketing hit that they take when a 10 year old flagship airframe is scrapped.
- hodgesrm 8y ago
  Wow! Where did these numbers come from? (This is what I love about HN.) It's awesome you can see details like the distribution of RR vs. GE engines, just to pick one bit of interesting data out of that sheet.
  - ak217 8y ago
    Someone very much into the 787 who follows their production very closely: http://nyc787.blogspot.com/ http://nyc787.blogspot.com/

Arnt 8y ago

The A380 did have weight and other issues early on. The A380s that are being broken up were replaced with new ones (Singapore Airlines leased five early A380s for ten years, when the lease was ended they didn't renew, but instead bought five new ones from Airbus).

ak217 8y ago

Boeing did go out of their way to make sure those "change incorporation" frames ended up in working condition and flying with customers. This spreadsheet shows what happened: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI5Pd-15rsJ1a0SFCRaT-iqgo/edit#gid=2 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI... - look at the dates in the "Load"/"Delivered" columns up to LN 19. LN 10 spent almost 8 years before entering revenue service. In Airbus's case, the equivalent might be to buy back the frames and place them with customers at a subsidy. There's definitely a marketing hit that they take when a 10 year old flagship airframe is scrapped.

hodgesrm 8y ago
Wow! Where did these numbers come from? (This is what I love about HN.) It's awesome you can see details like the distribution of RR vs. GE engines, just to pick one bit of interesting data out of that sheet.
- ak217 8y ago
  Someone very much into the 787 who follows their production very closely: http://nyc787.blogspot.com/ http://nyc787.blogspot.com/