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I remember a youtube video explaining why big airplanes like the A380, while technically impressive, do not make economic sense to airlines because it's all abo
by jokoon 8y ago
I remember a youtube video explaining why big airplanes like the A380, while technically impressive, do not make economic sense to airlines because it's all about stopovers: it's more efficient to "ship" people with several airplanes because it allows them to land to many more airports.
Of course there are still very busy destinations, for example Los Angeles - New York, New York - London, but that's not enough air traffic so they don't need as many A380 as we would think.
- speedplane 8y agoThe true goal of commercial airplane design is to find a plane that fits demand of a particular route, so it's always full. With an A380, you can do well on long haul popular flights, but even with those flights, you have very little flexibility if things change. Panam invested heavily in the 747 back in the day, and they minted money by offering relatively reasonably priced international long haul flights. But when gas prices and terrorism spiked, diminishing demand, they had these huge gas guzzling planes that they couldn't fill up. The A380 is really impressive, and it works well (now) on several specific routes. But it's clear that the industry is moving towards fuel efficient, more reasonably sized planes like the 787 and the A350 that are efficient on both long and short haul flights.