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Your analysis is wrong from many points. There is a huge market for the plane. The plane came too early. Build now with lighter materials, better engines and
by jayalpha 8y ago
Your analysis is wrong from many points.
There is a huge market for the plane.
The plane came too early. Build now with lighter materials, better engines and in the long version (the wings are designed for a much longer version, this also makes it heavy for the short version).
Is there a demand for such flights from Chicago to NYC? No.
But Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Deli, Mumbai via hubs such as Moscow, Istanbul or Addis there is.
So unfortunately the truth is, that there is a market, but the plane come too early. In fact, the Airbus CEO said exactly this in an interview.
- mcrae 8y agoThat's an odd selection of cities you propose.. there's not even daily flights between some of those city pairs, let alone an a380
- ggm 8y agoThere are huge numbers of people in these cities flying international every day. I agree the hubs may not be right but between LHR, FRA, DXB, SIN and the supersize megacities it makes sense to fly 380 to maximize landing slot efficiency.
- jayalpha 8y agoNope. It is not an odd selection. I named Asian centers. Shanghai has 20 Million people. The Yangtze Delta is an aggregation of probably around 200 Million people. So I named big population centers in Asia. The big airlines in Singapore and Hongkong have declined a lot. They are missing the hinterland, they can't serve as hubs for China anymore. The same will be happening in UAE. Etihad airlines has problems already. So what are the future hubs for Asia<>Europe and Asia<> Africa? 1. Moscow. Aeroflot is most of the time the cheapest airline from China to Europe. 2. Istanbul and Turkish Airlines. I think no other airlines serves more countries, the new airport in Istanbul aims to be the biggest in the world in the final stage. 3. Addis Abeba and Ethiopian airlines. Addis will be the future hub of Africa (Ethiopia has more than 100MM People). At the same time they will hurt the UAE airlines a lot. Also see: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ethiopian-best-airline-south-african-airways-profit-loss-africa-travel-a8258836.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ethiopi... Now, I never claimed that there are now A380 flights. But this would be the market, had the plane be build 10 years later and in the stretched version. Not for a flight Moscow to Frankfurt. Not for a flight Addis to Entebbe. But definitely for Shanghai to Moscow. Guangzhou to Addis. Etc. etc. Bring customers from big centers to the Hub. The Hub must have - good geo-location - government backing - enough local customers (e.g. Moscow vs. Dubai) I fly a lot between Asia, Africa and Europe (All three alliances Gold Elite :-) ). I think I know what I am talking about.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ATsch 8y ago> So what are the future hubs [...] I see a problem with your assesment right there in your assumption that large hubs will still be a thing in the future. It's becoming more and more obvious that this won't be the case.
- ulfw 8y agoIt's an odd selection as population size isn't indicative of aircraft size. Congestion of airports and slot constraints is. Which is why you find most A380s in Dubai, London and on long haul routes like LAX and SYD. EVA flies 2 77W back-to-back on LAX-TPE within half an hour. Istanbul doesn't even have a single A380 gate. None of the airlines you mentioned ever flew an A380 either.
- jayalpha 8y ago"It's an odd selection as population size isn't indicative of aircraft size. Congestion of airports and slot constraints is." I disagree. Since it is the wrong solution for the problem. > Which is why you find most A380s in Dubai, London I am not surprised that it did not work for this airlines. "Istanbul doesn't even have a single A380 gate." Not sure what you mean with this. I was talking about the new airport and the airport is prepared for the A380, see link. Again, the A380 is the right solutions in size, it is just wrong in cost performance because it came 10 years too early. https://airlinerwatch.com/new-istanbul-airport-prepares-room-for-the-airbus-a380/ https://airlinerwatch.com/new-istanbul-airport-prepares-room...
- dx034 8y agoWith enough capacity, airlines would rather fly 10x A350/B787 between two major cities rather than 5x A380. Offers more choice to the customers (as already for JFK-LAX where you often have a flight every 30 min), saves fuel and makes airlines less vulnerable to idiosyncratic events (e.g. crew sickness or technical fault).
- StreamBright 8y ago
- AmVess 8y agoThere isn't a huge market for the plane. The primary customer is Emirates, who have 109 of them. The next closest, SA, have 24. If you exclude Emirates altogether, the global buy-in for the 380 is 125 units. The remainder of the production run will primarily be to Emirates. If there was a huge market for the plane, then airlines would have been lining up to buy them. A huge market would be the 787, which started production in 2011 and has delivered 789 of them on 1421 orders.
- jayalpha 8y agoYou misunderstood my post. I said, there is market for this type of plane, but not for the A380. I was 10 years too early. - Needs other engines - Needs to be lighter - Needs to be bigger. The wings are build for the long version. The question is, how much does it cost to bring one (price sensitive) customer to the hub? The A380 was the right idea based on size, but too early and failed on price.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoThere is zero proof of what you are saying, also some down right things that are just plain wrong.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoLonger body, I believe.
- ethagknight 8y agoI think the responses above understand your post, you are just referring to a plane that does not exist, and does not exist in a viable roadmap. A more ideal A380 might work, but Emirates is stuck having to continue buying the current production line, and not the future development. If anything, it sounds like it was 30 years too early.
- Xixi 8y agoI strongly doubt it: larger planes simply don't sell, this is not specific to the A380. Let's look one size below: On Airbus side the second biggest airliner is the A350-1000: very light, top notch engines -> 170 orders so far, very underwhelming, and the project of a bigger A350-2000 has been postponed due to a lack of interest. On Boeing side the 777-9 (not yet flying) has even more modern engines, a super light wing, and besides Emirates nobody is buying it...
- eloisant 8y agoI'd say it's more for big city to big city. NYC to London, Tokyo to Paris, SF to Hong Kong... There are already dozens of flights per days between those. For that flights, a huge airplane makes sense.
- dx034 8y agoWhere capacity allows, serving a route multiple times with small planes is preferred by airlines and customers. And even if slots are restricted, offering less capacity than demand (driving up prices) can be more profitable than trying to offer service to anyone who's willing to book. Long range versions of single-aisle planes also change the dynamics a bit, putting less focus on hubs.
- isostatic 8y ago> NYC to London No A380s on this route. There are 32 flights each way, 28 from Heathrow. BA/AA operate 12 daily flights LHR-JFK, pretty much one ever 90 minutes during the day, it's pretty much a turn up and go service. Virgin/Delta do another 8 flights, again turn-up and go. That frequency attracts the people on flexible tickets. Those on the cheapest flights they find on skyscanner will probably take the norweigan 787s from Gatwick. That market for flexibility doesn't exist between say London and Singapore (I suspect most are transferring at least at one end), but there's plenty of passengers looking to travel, and so you get 4 of the 7 flights over 3 carriers are on A380s.
- tim333 8y agoAlso I guess if you are running 12 flights you can adjust the number to demand and say do 10 or 8 in low season. It'd be less easy to do that with the A380.
- isostatic 8y agoIf you have somewhere else for the planes to go, and the slots and agreements, yes. BA ran an empty flight from Heathrow to Cardiff for a while to keep a slot at Heathrow.
- 8y ago
- gkanai 8y agoSome of the highest passenger counts per year are between Osaka-Tokyo or Sapporo-Tokyo or Seoul-Jeju or Shanghai-Beijing. And yet I don't see 380s on those routes...
- mshook 8y agoJapan is usually a Boeing backyard. Case in point with JAL (not sure if they fly the routes you talked about but it's as good as an example): https://www.jal.com/en/outline/aircraft.html https://www.jal.com/en/outline/aircraft.html 231 aircrafts, not a single Airbus.
- princeb 8y agoyes if you look at busiest routes you will find the top few dominated by short domestic routes less than 1000-1500 km. you run a short range plane like the a320 or the 737 and fly the route 100s of times a day. it's much cheaper than running a few a380s. the a380s are almost only used for long range flights with 1 or 2 flights a day: sydney-dubai-heathrow, singapore-london, singapore-frankfurt-new york etc.
- CydeWeys 8y agoAnd smaller planes flying more frequently yield a better experience for the customer, too. There's more flight times to choose from, boarding doesn't take as long, and there's many more jetways available for smaller planes at airports.
- tjpnz 8y agoANA operates the 777 on those routes, hell I've even seen it flown on Tokyo-Hiroshima and it was full. A case could certainly be made for the A380 on Tokyo-Osaka.
- kenneth 8y agoThere's a point at which the time spent boarding becomes too great considering the time in the air. The A380 is a large plane, and you really need 3 jetways to board it in any amount of reasonable time. The mentioned routes are mostly operated by 767s, 787s, 777s, or 330s. The 767 is the perfect plane for the route, and the 330 isn't half bad. TPE-HKG is another example of one of these super busy short routes.
- ekianjo 8y agoThe A380 was planned for a world where people travel between big hubs before hopping to another flight to reach their destination. That world exists only for a small amount of destinations and for most other routes the A380 would be mostly empty and therefore widely uneconomical to use. Instead bireactor planes are now allowed to travel further and further away, making region to region traffic a lot more realistic than 20 years ago. And that is where the traffic is increasing the most.
- speedplane 8y agoCreating a commercial airline is one of the most complex business endeavors one can take one. Such a huge amount of variables, along with predictions about flight technology, supply/demand, customer service, and fuel costs are a necessary part of it. I with there was a Sim-Airline game.
- jpatokal 8y agoThere are a bunch. This looks very low-tech, but is completely free and kinda fun for a while: http://www.airline-empires.com/index.php?/page/home.html http://www.airline-empires.com/index.php?/page/home.html This is much more slick: http://www.airlinesim.aero/en http://www.airlinesim.aero/en But none come close to the complexity of the real thing, and the models are unrealistic/can fairly easily be "hacked" (print money by giving away flights but charging $1000 for meals, etc).
- ceejayoz 8y agoI haven't found one with the right mix of fun and complexity. They're all either super fluffy with five minutes worth of gameplay, or spreadsheet managers like EVE (without even the pretty graphics to accompany it). Same thing for airport simulators.
- bronco21016 8y agoI can’t remember the name at all but there was a very interesting web-based airline sim we ran when I was in school for aviation. There weren’t any fancy graphics or anything though. You just bought airplanes, set routes and prices, and managed your finances. A fiscal quarter would run every few days. It was a lot of fun!
- growlist 8y agoThis is kind of what I was thinking - or even that the plane is not just too early, but too small - there was talk of building a stretched A380.
- Reason077 8y agoThe problem with the A380 is not really it's size. You're right that there will always be big cities with slot-constrained hub airports where big aircraft make sense. The real problem is that the A380 is falling behind other modern aircraft on its operating costs. Being able to carry an extra 100-150 pax is nice, but when each seat costs 20-30% more per mile in fuel compared to a 777X or an A350, then most airlines will choose the more fuel-efficient models.
- speedplane 8y agoThe 777X isn't even flying right now.
- isostatic 8y agoWhen airlines are looking to buy aircraft in 2021, they'll have a choice between A350, A380, and 77X. Very few situations will call for a new A380.
- Xixi 8y agoAnd given A350-1000 and 777-8/9 order books, very few situations call for even these... Most of the traffic growth is being eaten by the smaller planes that are getting quite a bit bigger: 50 regional seaters are being replaced by 100 seaters, A319/A320 are being replaced by A320/A321, etc. Meanwhile the bigger planes are getting smaller: 747 being downsized to 777-300ER, A350-900 or even 787-9.
- Reason077 8y agoIt's not far away. The first aircraft have already been completed, and deliveries should start next year.
- CydeWeys 8y agoIs there something inherent in the A380 design that makes it less fuel-efficient, or is it just that the engines are of an older design than the newest planes? (I'm guessing it may be as simple as there's 4 engines instead of 2?)
- baybal2 8y ago> the wings are designed for a much longer version, this also makes it heavy for the short version Make it even a bit longer, and takeoff performance will tank so much, that you will need even longer runways
- InTheArena 8y agoNot really. This was the argument Airbus previously gave to justify their continuing losses on the program. The reality is much simpler - smaller jets to more places (no matter if it's hub to hub or hub to spoke or point to point) fragments the market, and makes it impossible to concentrate enough demand to consistently fill a A380 at a specific price point. This trend is really clear in the aviation business. The 757 and 767 really killed four or three engine engine trans-Atlantic (the single most important international route system), while the 787 killed four engines across the pacific. The smallest plane, with the most reasonable CASM (cost per available seat mile) at the highest frequency wins.