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Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert
- johnwalkr 3y agoFlying in an A380 is nice but it has one annoyance, at least in economy. It can take well over an hour between meal service starting and getting your meal tray picked up and being able to put your seat back again.
- tistoon 3y agoThis applies to any other long-range aircraft. It's a crew efficiency issue.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- neonate 3y agohttps://archive.ph/Y2lHm https://archive.ph/Y2lHm
- diebeforei485 3y agoIt's a magnificent plane. It's very unfortunate that they launched the "shortened" version. The design and engineering was done for longer fuselage, so it actually has extra structure (and extra weight!) and larger wings than necessary. And it launched just before engines got a lot more efficient. The upside for passengers is that it's still the smoothest flying experience, even in turbulence. Boeing's 747 was incredibly profitable at the time, so it cross-subsidized other aircraft like the 737 (which competed with the A320). Launching the A380 countered that effect, and it made all segments more competitive. It's unfortunate that the largest aircraft are going out at the time when demand for flying is higher than ever. On the upside, the A350 has many of the A380's technologies, and is a great competitor to the 777 series (and is also a very good competitor to the 787 series!)
- raulgalera 3y agoi totally agree re: the smoothest flying experience. the takeoff is so long and smooth you almost don't realize that you're up in the air. it was sad to learn that airlines were trying to get rid of it.
- llsf 3y agoThe landing surprised me too. Super soft compared to smaller planes. I once landed in Johannesburg on a A380 Air France from Paris and the airport was in thick fog. You could not even tell we touched the ground. The captain made the announcement after landing that it was his very first time letting the plane land in itself... you could tell the excitement in his voice :)
- jillesvangurp 3y agoFog basically means no wind or turbulence. So, smooth landings would be expected and easy. More challenging would be lots of cross wind, wind shear, and turbulence. The plane basically has to land at an angle and then yaw to straighten out at the last second all while constantly correcting for changes in lift and vertical speed. So you are shaking around the plane and passengers quite a bit. A rough landing is actually considered a safe landing when the conditions are not ideal. A smooth landing means flying the plane close to stall speed. So close that it gently touches down with barely any vertical speed left. You don't do that when there's any risk of wind shear causing very sudden and extreme drops in air speed of tens of knots. If that happens you drop below stall speed and basically the plane drops out of the sky. If that happens low enough, you crash and die. It's extremely unsafe to do anything else than plonking it down decisively under such conditions. That means a larger vertical and horizontal speed and eliminating airspeed via the shock absorbers instead of floating over the runway. That's what shock absorbers are for. As long as the plane doesn't bounce off again, it's all good. Bouncing is dangerous though because now you are slow and stalling.
- Scoundreller 3y ago> the takeoff is so long and smooth Is this another way of saying slow to accelerate?
- madeofpalk 3y agoNote: Qantas resumed A380 flights in January 2022 after shelving them due to the pandemic. I guess this article is about them finishing bringing back the last A380s https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/qantas-returns-flagship-a380-to-service-earlier-to-ease-pressure-on-787-pilots-20211227-p59ka3.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/qantas-returns-flagship-...
- wunderland 3y agoThis is pretty clear from the article: “ Qantas stored 12 of its A380s in Victorville. There are now seven servicing the airline’s London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong routes, with another three expected to return next year following the completion of an extensive maintenance check and cabin reconfiguration process. The remaining two jumbos were left in Victorville to be broken up into parts.”
- tonywastaken 3y agoLufthansa is bringing A380s back as well
- 0xDEF 3y agoProbably the cheapest way to fill the highly busy Germany-Thailand air routes during the German summer vacation weeks.
- alexanderchr 3y agoIt’s too premium heavy for charter routes. They are starting with Munich to Boston and New York.
- jorisboris 3y agoYes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Lufthansa a380 in BKK. (Though not 100% sure)
- hristov 3y agoI like the a380 because it treats the lowly economy passenger (i.e., me) the best of all the large planes. It has the most headroom (even though it has two stories) so the cabin feels more airy and less cramped. So this is good news.
- mrguyorama 3y agoThe aircraft manufacturers offer multiple passenger configurations. It is the airline's fault if your trip is uncomfortable. The A380 has less pressure to squeeze everyone in because it already doesn't fly full much of the time.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI love the A380 but the 787 is pretty cozy on the headroom too. Seems very dependent on the selection of baggage bins the airline makes.
- IIsi50MHz 3y ago“Cozy" would imply "small (and usually comfortable[1])", to me, and thus be a (partial) contrast to the previous person's claim of plenty of headroom. [1] Except that real-estate seems to use it to mean "inadequate space for intended purpose" (-:
- fukawi2 3y agoThe one thing I don't like, and this may just be Emirates cabin configuration, but the space between the seat back and the cabin wall on the widow seat is too large to be able to rest your head "comfortably" against the wall to sleep. I flew MEL DXB LON KEF a couple of weeks ago. First 2 flights were A380, and the last was 757. I got better sleep on that 4 hour flight than either the other 2 legs (13 and 8 hours).
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoNo, this is a common complaint. The size is too big to lean on and too small to do anything useful with. I've flown First on AF and it's no better up there.
- herpderperator 3y agoI just got back from a road trip where I visited this boneyard (among other things) in the Mojave Desert.[0][1][2] The airport/planes are all fenced in, but you can still go up to the fence and see them up close. Pretty wild to see so many planes in one place. [0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjkmpacv7yvpur5/PXL_20230411_003823349.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjkmpacv7yvpur5/PXL_20230411_00382... [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pgdlmn7z9ej0rc/PXL_20230411_004336480.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pgdlmn7z9ej0rc/PXL_20230411_00433... [2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/f65qu80wlcb5wma/PXL_20230411_214100205.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/f65qu80wlcb5wma/PXL_20230411_21410...
- hencq 3y agoI had read about it as a kid and knew it existed, so it was a delight when I drove by it a few years ago on my way to Mount Whitney. "Hey, I know about this place!"
- ctippett 3y agoThanks for sharing these. I wasn't expecting an Air NZ plane when I clicked on the links – my father (a pilot) flew that exact plane when he was rated on the 777 over 15-years ago.
- jonahhorowitz 3y agoFedEx is going to scrap all the DC-10s/MD-11s you see in the photos. I always loved those tri-jets (along with the 727) as a kid. [0] - https://theloadstar.com/cost-cutting-fedex-express-to-retire-md-11s-for-b767s-and-777s/ https://theloadstar.com/cost-cutting-fedex-express-to-retire...
- johnvanommen 3y agoI couldn't recommend seeing it more highly. I stopped there on the way to the Grand Canyon, and I honestly enjoyed the Boneyard more than the Grand Canyon. Plus, the Mexican food nearby is great :)
- benjaminwootton 3y agoThis looks great. We stumbled on a similar one in France for fighter jets and old planes and spent a full day there. Thanks for the reccomendation.
- empressplay 3y agoHaving escaped Australia during the middle of the pandemic, I'd like to correct this article: Australia's only long-haul carrier during the pandemic was United. Thanks United for getting me out of Australia!
- exidy 3y agoNot quite. Singapore Airlines continued to fly a lot of near-empty planes to Australia during the pandemic, and delivered the first load of Pfizer. I believe Qatar kept flying also. Qantas basically ceased all international operations except when underwritten by the government.
- anthonyshort 3y agoI believe it was saying that Qantas was the only Australian-owned airline operating long haul flights during the pandemic.
- madeofpalk 3y agoQantas was operating repatriation flights back to Australia during the pandemic on behalf of DFAT.
- testrun 3y agoI am glad you escaped. I am an Australian.
- ghiculescu 3y agolol, this attitude is why so many Aussies don’t want to go back.
- 6nf 3y agoYup. I'm in Sydney and it's one of the most disappointing things about Australians. The inability or unwillingness to understand things like this.
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- delsarto 3y agoThey also make good tankers when your refuelers strike https://australianaviation.com.au/2023/03/qantas-uses-a380-fresh-out-of-boneyard-to-mitigate-strike/ https://australianaviation.com.au/2023/03/qantas-uses-a380-f...
- et-al 3y agoI'm pretty sure the Mojave storage field is where it is because of its proximity to Edwards AFB and Bakersfield, but climate and land cost-wise, would there be a milder, yet dry, location to store aircraft outdoors in the States?
- coredog64 3y agoPinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona. It’s just up the road from the boneyard at Davis-Monthan in Tucson.
- et-al 3y agoClimate-wise, Marana, AZ doesn't seem any milder (I'm also surprised the Mojave doesn't cross 100ºF): https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/1757~2591/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Mojave-and-Marana https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/1757~2591/Comparison-of-t... Basically asking, "if we can put this anywhere else, where would be other good candidates?" Besides Redwood City, Climate Best by Government Test.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- WalterBright 3y ago> striving to meet their emissions-reduction goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. This is part of the reason Qantas has invested heavily in kick-starting Australia’s sustainable aviation fuel industry. This is one of the most destructive frauds otherwise intelligent people are suckered into. It's based on the idiotic notion that a C atom from a biofuel results in "green" CO2 emissions. The CO2 emitted is exactly the same, and in the same amounts. Biofuels are destructive in that they cost double, and if done in mass quantity will require an enormous amount of agricultural land to produce.
- progman32 3y agoThe idea being that producing the biofuel took carbon from the atmosphere (in particular algae crops [1]), vs releasing co2 that had been sitting harmlessly underground prior to being burned. Does producing biofuel not pull carbon away from the atmosphere? Am I misunderstanding your point? [1] https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/publications/bio-aviation-fuel-a-comprehensive-review-and-analysis-of-the-supp https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/publications/bio-aviati...
- WalterBright 3y agoLet's say you have a log from a tree you just chopped down. You have the same amount of wood dug up as coal. Each emits the same CO2 when burned. Where is the net decrease in CO2? What difference does it make being fossilized?
- bryanlarsen 3y agoCarbon neutrality means "no net increase" not a net decrease.
- WalterBright 3y agoI do know what the words mean. Throwing the log in a landfill (or building a house with it) would accomplish the same thing, and is a heluva lot cheaper.
- popey 3y agoThere's a famous air-show where I live - Farnborough. Some years back there was an A319 and an A380 on show. They went up for a display in the sky, one after the other. The way the pilot threw the A319 around was pretty amazing, then the A380 went up and did basically the same manoeuvres. Pretty spectacular to watch these things. My brain still doesn't quite understand how the hell those metal birds stay in the air!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- akhayam 3y agoI miss flying A380s--such a pleasure. Other airlines (I am talking to you, Emirates): you bring it back too!
- GrifMD 3y agoIt's always a treat to fly on. I managed to score some first class award tickets on Etihad's A380s from Sydney to Abu Dhabi to London... for July 2020. As you can imagine, that didn't work out. I fly Sydney to LAX on Qantas usually once a year and somehow I always get swapped from an A380 to a 787 :/ I understand that this plane isn't the most fuel efficient, and that the A350, 787, and 777X are replacing it, but the A380 just feels a little "golden age of flying". The multiple decks, the bars on some planes and the crazy first class suites (and their showers) really made it a cool plane. It was the first plane that flew on that had enhanced pressurization (Qantas economy LAX to MEL back in 2010), as I mostly flew AA's old 737s back then. I do acknowledge, that a lot of the things I'm lamenting are premium products, I really do. The cost for first and business class tickets on most A380 flights are ridiculous, and frankly the only time I've flown business is either via upgrades or award tickets (thank you credit card bonuses). Still, you've got to admit they are cool planes. What other plane could you actually take a shower on?
- akhayam 3y agoCouldn’t have said it better myself. I also flew the SFO<>SYD leg at least twice (generally 3+) times a year in my last job. Qantas was my preferred airline but never got to fly an A380. I flew it from SFO<>DXB for many years and you can’t beat that shower and leg space.. Let’s make a petition that all airlines start flying A380’s :)
- benjaminwootton 3y agoEmirates never stopped flying A380s, at least between London, Dubai and Thailand which I’ve done regularly since 2020.
- akhayam 3y agoYou are so lucky! I just searched an aviation site and seems like the SFO<>DXB is back on A380 as well…. Yaaay! From that page: “ In 2023, the Emirates A380 is at this point scheduled to operate flights to 44 destinations in almost 30 countries. While a handful of the routes are seasonal, the vast majority are year-round. The countries with the most Emirates A380 routes in 2023 include the United States (5 destinations) and Australia (4 destinations).”
- gumby 3y agoWhy were they parked in the USA? During Covid a number of asian airlines parked their planes in Australian deserts.
- prawn 3y agoThere are still a variety of planes parked at the airport in Alice Springs (central Australia). Maybe it's a size thing with using Victorville over Alice?
- ioseph 3y agoIt was pretty cool flying in mid 2020 and seeing an endless field of tightly packed planes: https://imgur.com/txyXWza https://imgur.com/txyXWza (I regret not getting a photo from the air)
- mrguyorama 3y agoYou might enjoy looking up photos of all the 737 MAX's that had to be stored in Boeing's parking lot after the MCAS issue.
- andyst 3y agoVictorville preferable due to lower humidity then alice, for longer term storage its desirable Alice is more fun because you can find snakes on your planes when you go to get them
- primax 3y agoI HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERF*ING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERF*ING PLANE
- dann0 3y agoI heard an anecdote that Alice Springs was full before QANTAS made a decision. Singapore Airlines stored several A380s at Alice Springs: https://simpleflying.com/singapore-airlines-alice-springs-a380/ https://simpleflying.com/singapore-airlines-alice-springs-a3...
- chris_wot 3y agoThis could only done because of the chronic underinvestment by Alan Joyce.
- jmyeet 3y agoThe A380 is a really interesting case study. Boeing had literal decades of owning the commercial aviation market thanks to the 747. The 747 was a 4 engine plane and the elevated cockpit made it elegant for cargo. So 20 or so years ago it was believed we needed a new 747. Boeing had their own variant (based on the 747) that failed to attract interest from airlines. Boeing didn't make a smart machine here. They just lost the competition. But some bad assumptions went into it: 1. We needed 4 engines. Engines now are so reliable that many of them will never be replaced over the lifetime of the airframe (decades); 2. The A380 often required infrastructure upgrades. This could include runways (for the larger weight) and the air terminals; 4. There are very few airports (and the routes attached to them) where landing slots became such an issue that a higher capacity plane was justified; 5. The A380 is praticularly ill-suited for the (massive) North American market. People not from NA might not understand just how many airports there are and people prefer direct connections rather than hub-and-spoke for obvious reasons. This favors smaller planes which is why you have airlines that exclusively operate on smaller planes (eg Southwest is 100% 737s of various generations); 6. The A380 failed to solve the range problem. Or rather there was still a need for planes that could go further than the A380 could; 7. Hug and spoke models only favored certain kinds of airlines. It's why the A380 was relatively popular with the ME3 airlines (Emierates in particular). Mos tpeople aren't flying to the Middle East. They're flying between Asia and Europe. Also, European and Asian airlines would operate the A380 between Europe and Asia. Australia like Europe has relatively few airports, particularly international airports. So it somewhat suits the A380. The most important routes for Qantas in particular are transpacific, particularly Sydney to LA. There's a lot of politics around transpacific flights such that relatively few airlines could fly them and they were hugely profitable as a result. Qantas has long wanted longer range planes to directly fly to London and New York without a stopover. Several years ago they added direct flights between Perth and London, which has been a huge success. Sydney to London or NYC is still beyond current ranges but that'll change in 2025 or so with ULR (ultra long range) variants of the A350 and 777. Less seats, more fuel, basically. Possibly a longer fuselage too. So Qantas still has a reasonable demand for the A380 flying from Sydney and Melbourne to Dubai (to connect to Europe). Note: this has only been the case for 10 years or so. Prior to that Qantas's stepping stone to Europe was Singapore and Qantas had a strong partnership with BA (ie codeshared flights, coordinated schedules). So this un-mothballing of the A380s is really temporary until Qantas can fly directly form Sydney to Europe.
- anonu 3y agoWouldn't it have been cheaper to fly them once a week, empty, for a few hours to keep them air worthy?
- anaganisk 3y agoYou are paying a lot higher price to store them, fuel them, pilots and support crew. Wearing out parts(landing gear etc).
- asdfman123 3y agoDid they not have enough desert in Australia?
- caporaltito 3y agoNo, it's a big plane so they needed a bigger desert.
- JCharante 3y ago> A380s are not very fuel efficient. I won't stand for A380 slander. They are very fuel efficient per passenger provided that you fill up the plane. Unfortunately many airlines had issues filling up the entire plane with passengers.
- cm2187 3y agoThat’s what I thought but if you look at the long haul flight table [1] and sort by fuel per seat, the A380 is near the bottom of the list, along the B747 and A340, ie all the models with 4 engines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Long-haul_flights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Long-...
- benhurmarcel 3y agoYou have to take those figures with a big fistful of salt though, they are very dependent on the assumptions and particular mission used for the analysis.
- rwmj 3y agoAre they "aging" as the article says? The first A380 was delivered in 2007 making the very oldest plane less than 20 years old.