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The A380 program was almost terminated this year, and only a lifeline order by Emirates (which is incredibly exposed, as they have almost half of the A380s that
by InTheArena 8y ago
The A380 program was almost terminated this year, and only a lifeline order by Emirates (which is incredibly exposed, as they have almost half of the A380s that have been delivered or ordered) kept the line alive. Lessors won't touch the plane due to a lack of a secondary market (as reflected in this order).
The problem with the A380 was that it was a prestige project formed around a core concept that never materialized, and was directly opposite of the trend over the last 30 years. Namely routes were becoming more fragmented, not less. The a380 required huge amounts of centralization for it to be effective. Places where that is true - Dubai primarily - it's worked well. Everyone else it simply is way to big. None of the passenger or cargo carriers in the United States, which has half of world wide lift, have received a A380.
Several studies have concluded that the only reason the A380 was feasible was because of Government launch aide. When you looked at it logically and with non-pollyannaish analysis, you do the same thing that Boeing did with the 747-600/700 and cancel it. (Boeing eventually built a scaled down 747-8i, which was also a failure, but it only cost them a few billion instead of tens of billions).
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoI do think the A380 helped Airbus brand image a lot. It might not be worth the money invested.
- InTheArena 8y agoYep, I think the A380 helped both Airbus's and Europe's brand. And that's why the government assistance in the form of launch aide might have been worth it.
- tim333 8y agoWell, I think kind of mixed results for the brand. It shows we can build the largest plane (good) and use subsidies for unprofitable stuff (less good).
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoLike everyone else, e.g. Boeing. IMHO better direct subsidies than indirect ones with 10% defence spending and trailer parks. But YMMV.
- strong_silent_t 8y agoI think if the government is going to subsidize something, politically aerospace makes a lot of sense. It has jobs for engineering, technicians, and high-skill trades. It has a long planning horizon and lots of regulation (meaning less short term competitive forces at play). It has defense applications. The downside is that everyone else is also subsidizing it, so it is still hard to compete.
- WalterBright 8y agoThe 747 was not subsidized.
- toweringgoat 8y agoBut Boeing is - majorly. Cross-subsidisation essentially.
- WalterBright 8y agoMilitary stuff, sure. The civil aviation stuff, no. Boeing did try to sell the military the 747 as a tanker, but that went nowhere and Boeing did not receive any government dev funding for it. The 707 did have a tanker version, the KC-135, but that happened after the 707 was flying. The 707 was funded entirely out of profits.
- samatman 8y agoWalter, you didn't say the 747 wasn't profitable, you said it wasn't subsidized. Boeing is subsidized by the USG, there's no realistic debate on that. That subsidy applies across their product line.
- WalterBright 8y agoI'd appreciate it if you could be specific about government funding for the 747.
- sametmax 8y agoWhich is sad given they are the most comfortable planes I've been in. Lot of space, lots of entry points, very quiet, and almost zero vibration.
- gadders 8y agoEmirates Economy on an a380 was the best economy class I have used.
- jackson1way 8y agosame here! 14 hours flight felt like 4 hours
- rajathagasthya 8y agoHave to agree. It's the only flight I've been in that doesn't scream "economy".
- kylehotchkiss 8y agoTry to get in the back of the plane and sometimes you'll get 2-3 seats to enjoy! Best way to fly in the world in my opinion.
- Reason077 8y agoThese particular aircraft that are being scrapped were very early-production A380s which were delivered significantly overweight (rumoured to be >5 tonnes!) Singapore Airlines planned to return them years ago and is, in fact, replacing them with new A380s. Other airlines don't want them because they are the worst A380s flying: their extra weight means they burn too much fuel. Certainly the A380 program hasn't been quite as successful as Airbus would have hoped, but I'm not sure it was ever in any real danger of being scrapped. Those rumours may have just been put out by Airbus in order to pressure Emirates into moving ahead with their order. There are still airlines like British Airways who have a lot of old B747s in service that are approaching their EOL. It seems likely that BA will order more A380s to replace at least some of these. And in any case, there are still more than 100 unfulfilled A380 orders on Airbus's books, meaning there's enough demand to keep production running for quite a few years to come, even if there were no additional orders.
- selectodude 8y agoIt seems likely that BA will order more A380s to replace at least some of these. They already bought their A380s. They're not buying any more. The 747 will most likely be replaced by A350-1000s or 777-9s.
- Reason077 8y agoBA wants to buy additional A380s - they just haven't yet been able to agree on the price. For an airline with a slot-constrained hub (Heathrow), it would be a step backwards to replace 747s with smaller aircraft as this would reduce their overall route capacity. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/airbus-is-said-to-be-in-talks-with-british-airways-on-more-a380s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/airbus-is...
- chillydawg 8y agoUK government just approved an extra runway at Heathrow, so capacity there (and onto NYC) will increase a fair bit.
- pasbesoin 8y agoWhy has it not caught on for cargo? Too inefficient? Too much investment in support facilities, tooling, staff required -- and/or too insecure? (Regarding the latter, no one's going to buy a couple of bargain basement priced planes, in the face of support requirements.)
- larkeith 8y agoAccording to another comment [1], it's because their cargo mass is not as large as their volume, relatively to other planes. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17266194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17266194
- jandrese 8y agoIIRC the cargo doors are too small and the space is broken up by a structural component (the second floor). The 747 was designed from the outset to be converted to a cargo hauler (hence the cockpit mounted on top) so it's much easier for a heavy lifter to work with.