6 ms·

This is an argument for smaller airplanes. There will never be an A380 again but also the larger twin isles may be be an endangered species. The A321 XLR seems

This is an argument for smaller airplanes. There will never be an A380 again but also the larger twin isles may be be an endangered species. The A321 XLR seems to be a harbinger of the future, smaller airplanes serving more city pairs point to point. Ultimately lower cost airlines will win out because flying is largely an undifferentiated product and connecting flights are just an opportunity to be left stranded somewhere. They add complexity and cost. But in this scenario there is still the need for longer flights in larger planes and we're seeing that in A350s doing pairs like Perth-London or Singapore-New York. Even those are more economically marginal with the larger planes and making something somewhat smaller with a very long range makes more sense.

dralley 3y ago
> Ultimately lower cost airlines will win out because flying is largely an undifferentiated product and connecting flights are just an opportunity to be left stranded somewhere. They add complexity and cost. MentourPilot made the exact opposite argument recently. The low-cost airlines are being disproportionately negatively affected by current market conditions. Some of those are due to a fluke, and some due to the low-cost carriers buying the wrong size aircraft, and some of it is due to the big carriers intruding into their market. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nKC7HxyOk&t=9m00s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nKC7HxyOk&t=9m00s
jmward01 3y ago
I think aviation as a whole is ripe for massive disruption. I think the end result will be much smaller planes that do point to point but the exact 'how will it happen' is still an unknown. This will force regulatory changes too since a lot more smaller = totally different airspace management and cockpit requirements (please allow autonomous!). My personal bet for the disruptor to do it is is on electric. Look at the graph of battery capacity/kg/year and it is clear that electric will out-pace JET-A in the not distant future. The benefits are massive when that happens since (as the article points out) developing engines is a huge part of the challenge. Electric engines are going to be vastly easier to design and certify and provide massive new options since they can be mounted in new ways making aircraft more efficient and cheaper to build and operate. They will also likely change the altitudes and speeds that aircraft fly at since the same issues that impact turbofan engines don't impact electric (there are other issues obviously though).
- peweet 3y ago
  Only someone unversed in the aerospace industry could make such a claim. The barrier to entry is vast. It isnt like other industries where you can break things and rapidly innovate. Ive seen first hand how hard it is to translate innovation onto the factory floor. For example there is innovation on AI or more accurately neural nets for the complex software governing landing gears that is functionally impossible to implement. What already exists, is essentially a million line IF statement governing every atmospheric condition and different angle gradient. The trick is getting the new innovation past the regulator in such a way that it is demonstrably more safe. What currently exists, presumably took decades to write and improve and tweak for every possible scenario and is extremely robust. It is also proprietary vital software out of control of both Airbus and Boeing. Meaning it is both expensive and creates a huge amount of leverage on the part of the supplier as no aircraft can be delivered without a landing gear and there is a very limited amount of companies who can produce it. While the neural nets perform better in lab scenarios it is probable the innovation will never be permitted to be deployed as it is extremely difficult to demonstrate if it is superior and more crucially: safer, than the tried and tested horreondous milion line statement. It could take 5-10 years of further testing and its only objective may be to just have some leverage in negotations (that both parties will know is very weak ammunition). The second bottleneck is you need a huge ecosystem of suppliers (much like the electric's ecosystem in Shenzhen) which can rapidly and safely fulfill purchase orders. The manufacturing is about the highest most precise manufacturing there is. Just to train someone to install parts on the assembly line can take 12-18 months. Also some suppliers such as CFMA, Rolls royce, P&W, GE will never entertain a small start up because why would they? They plan production in terms of 5-10 years and they need deep commitments to satisfy their creditors and their workforce. Can a startup sign a 10-15 year service agreement that guarantees revenue for maintenance? Can a start up guarantee other types of corporate agreements on spare parts or engineering workshops or the other thousand myriad different exchanges of information. These plants produce engines on maybe a monthly or quarterly basis. The parts inside the engines are protected on a national security basis as they are so difficult to manufacture. The engineering IP is a genuine national security risk as it can be translated into jet fighters. Aerospace industry is about as open to disruption as big pharma is. Its surrounded by arcane redtape such as Airworthiness directives that are designed to make sure no one dies. Where you could see innovation is electric or hydrogen for short haul flights on smaller planes. The problem is the batteries and hydrogen especially, can be more dangerous than the current kerosene. And again only shorthaul. For long-haul it is likely kerosene is never replaced bar some unforseen revolution in materials science not seen in 50-100 years. You cannot fudge the physics of weight, density and speed versus power output. The MTOW (Max take of weight) for batteries is vastly higher than kerosene and the energy is used up far faster. The aerospace manufacturers are researching green jet fuel which could be a good way to reduce emissions. The regulators will never slacken on the rigidity of the regulation. It is so easy to make a minor mistake in manufacturing that can result in a mass casuality event. In fact for every new engineer that joins Airbus, they are first shown a musuem dedicated to all victims of previous disasters to demonstrate what is at stake and how important engineering excellence is.
jltsiren 3y ago
There is an argument for large planes on long-haul flights: the money comes from people who are willing to pay for comfort. I fly a few times a year across the Atlantic. On those flights, economy class is typically only 30-40% of the cabin. Then there is a small premium economy section, and the remaining half of the plane is dedicated for business class and first class.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  Single aisle planes have the same business class seats, adapted for single aisle, but much the same.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  I guess this is airline and route specific. Toronto to Paris has planes that look like this on air Canada: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Canada/Air_Canada_Boeing_777-300ER_Three_Class_v4.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Canada/Air_Canada_Boei... (Supposedly seatguru is out of date, just still!)
  - josephg 3y ago
    Yeah I just flew Abu Dhabi to Melbourne with Etihad and that was more or less the seat layout on the flight too.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Business travelers make up 12% of airline passengers, but they pay higher rates than other customers and are typically twice as lucrative, accounting for as much as 75% of profits. * https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-revenue-airline-industry-comes-business-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-rev...
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
I know that self driving cars are eyerolling to hear about, but highway self-driving with convergent infrastructure (not the drive-me-thru-Taco-Bell kind) is going to come to trucking, for the basic reason that you can drive the trucks overnight at a minimum. Smaller planes seem mostly designed for shorter flights, but if I can get a better-than-sober-me stats on highways, and I can sleep in a car while it drives me to another city, why would I fly? - take a lot more stuff with you - for families it will be insanely cheaper - if an EV, it will be lower carbon - I will have a car for last mile/city driving when I get there - much better seats I honestly think the 20 year prognosis for <800 mile flights is going to be really bad. 800 miles flying is 2 hours + taxiing + waiting in line + transport to airport + giving yourself enough buffer + land/get luggage + ground transport. That is probably 5-6 hours in many situations. So a 10-11 hour drive where you don't have to pay attention and can sleep overnight would be my primary choice if I could do it now. Even if there was, say, a 1500 mile trip to florida, if there is someone to visit along the way, I'll drive. Anyway, the gist of it is that I think large planes or trips with water barriers are what the industry will end up with, I don't anticipate some massive groundswell of air travel demand for shorter flights in the long run.
- euroderf 3y ago
  You've also made the case for railway travel, except the last mile car. But that last mile car is an impediment in a proper (dense) city with proper transit.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    Railway travel has schedules you have to adhere, and all the boarding/unboarding overhead, and luggage limitations. With the high expense of rail infrastructure (e.g. transporation in cities) I always wondered if you simply designated a dedicated paved lane for busses if that would simply be cheaper.
    - euroderf 3y ago
      Buying tix online makes rail travel a lot simpler, ektually. But there's a place for buses too, and a crossover point where increased traffic makes rail better long-term. But long-dx on buses is no fun. Trains rule. Get some shuteye, or watch the world go by.
Scoundreller 3y ago
Very long range is de facto inefficient because you have to bunker so much fuel. Intermediate stop operations would be more efficient (stopping midway just to refuel, if not scramble passengers around to/from different destinations)
- silvestrov 3y ago
  But then you have more tear and wear on the airframe due to having twice the number of landings and take off.
- martinclayton 3y ago
  Indeed! Carry burn about 4% per hour a pilot friend mentioned last week. Flying is more like space flight than driving in this respect.
cm2187 3y ago
I think there will be an A380 again, unless you think air traffic will go down, and I don't see any trend of that. Number of runways is a much tougher constraint to expand than plane size, so the segment of point to point occupied by A330/350 and B787/777 will ultimately be also saturated and require bigger planes.
- brigade 3y ago
  Those runways still serve a ton of 737/A320 flights that have plenty of room to be upgauged to widebodies, and most of those runways could increase capacity further still if FAA/ICAO decide newer tech can safely reduce IFR separation. Even with runway congestion, a big problem with an A380 successor is that any new commercial jet needs the fuel economy of two engines to have a chance of selling enough to be worth developing. Which in turn means that an A380-sized twin engine plane needs engines with ~50% more thrust than the current world record from a GE9X, which is already approaching material limits... A new 747-like plane with a partial double deck might eventually make business sense to develop within our lifetimes... But I think a blended wing (lol) is more likely than ever seeing another full double decker like the A380.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    A380 also ended up having too much dead weight to be useful for freight. We will probably see a double decker if only because the Middle Eastern megahub airlines need it for their business models to work.
  - cm2187 3y ago
    But intuitively efficiency per passenger should only be the binding metric if you are not capacity constrained. ie it may be economical to fly four-engine planes with nearly twice the number of passengers, than not meeting the demand on a route because it is saturated.

dralley 3y ago

> Ultimately lower cost airlines will win out because flying is largely an undifferentiated product and connecting flights are just an opportunity to be left stranded somewhere. They add complexity and cost. MentourPilot made the exact opposite argument recently. The low-cost airlines are being disproportionately negatively affected by current market conditions. Some of those are due to a fluke, and some due to the low-cost carriers buying the wrong size aircraft, and some of it is due to the big carriers intruding into their market. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nKC7HxyOk&t=9m00s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nKC7HxyOk&t=9m00s

jmward01 3y ago

I think aviation as a whole is ripe for massive disruption. I think the end result will be much smaller planes that do point to point but the exact 'how will it happen' is still an unknown. This will force regulatory changes too since a lot more smaller = totally different airspace management and cockpit requirements (please allow autonomous!). My personal bet for the disruptor to do it is is on electric. Look at the graph of battery capacity/kg/year and it is clear that electric will out-pace JET-A in the not distant future. The benefits are massive when that happens since (as the article points out) developing engines is a huge part of the challenge. Electric engines are going to be vastly easier to design and certify and provide massive new options since they can be mounted in new ways making aircraft more efficient and cheaper to build and operate. They will also likely change the altitudes and speeds that aircraft fly at since the same issues that impact turbofan engines don't impact electric (there are other issues obviously though).

peweet 3y ago
Only someone unversed in the aerospace industry could make such a claim. The barrier to entry is vast. It isnt like other industries where you can break things and rapidly innovate. Ive seen first hand how hard it is to translate innovation onto the factory floor. For example there is innovation on AI or more accurately neural nets for the complex software governing landing gears that is functionally impossible to implement. What already exists, is essentially a million line IF statement governing every atmospheric condition and different angle gradient. The trick is getting the new innovation past the regulator in such a way that it is demonstrably more safe. What currently exists, presumably took decades to write and improve and tweak for every possible scenario and is extremely robust. It is also proprietary vital software out of control of both Airbus and Boeing. Meaning it is both expensive and creates a huge amount of leverage on the part of the supplier as no aircraft can be delivered without a landing gear and there is a very limited amount of companies who can produce it. While the neural nets perform better in lab scenarios it is probable the innovation will never be permitted to be deployed as it is extremely difficult to demonstrate if it is superior and more crucially: safer, than the tried and tested horreondous milion line statement. It could take 5-10 years of further testing and its only objective may be to just have some leverage in negotations (that both parties will know is very weak ammunition). The second bottleneck is you need a huge ecosystem of suppliers (much like the electric's ecosystem in Shenzhen) which can rapidly and safely fulfill purchase orders. The manufacturing is about the highest most precise manufacturing there is. Just to train someone to install parts on the assembly line can take 12-18 months. Also some suppliers such as CFMA, Rolls royce, P&W, GE will never entertain a small start up because why would they? They plan production in terms of 5-10 years and they need deep commitments to satisfy their creditors and their workforce. Can a startup sign a 10-15 year service agreement that guarantees revenue for maintenance? Can a start up guarantee other types of corporate agreements on spare parts or engineering workshops or the other thousand myriad different exchanges of information. These plants produce engines on maybe a monthly or quarterly basis. The parts inside the engines are protected on a national security basis as they are so difficult to manufacture. The engineering IP is a genuine national security risk as it can be translated into jet fighters. Aerospace industry is about as open to disruption as big pharma is. Its surrounded by arcane redtape such as Airworthiness directives that are designed to make sure no one dies. Where you could see innovation is electric or hydrogen for short haul flights on smaller planes. The problem is the batteries and hydrogen especially, can be more dangerous than the current kerosene. And again only shorthaul. For long-haul it is likely kerosene is never replaced bar some unforseen revolution in materials science not seen in 50-100 years. You cannot fudge the physics of weight, density and speed versus power output. The MTOW (Max take of weight) for batteries is vastly higher than kerosene and the energy is used up far faster. The aerospace manufacturers are researching green jet fuel which could be a good way to reduce emissions. The regulators will never slacken on the rigidity of the regulation. It is so easy to make a minor mistake in manufacturing that can result in a mass casuality event. In fact for every new engineer that joins Airbus, they are first shown a musuem dedicated to all victims of previous disasters to demonstrate what is at stake and how important engineering excellence is.

jltsiren 3y ago

There is an argument for large planes on long-haul flights: the money comes from people who are willing to pay for comfort. I fly a few times a year across the Atlantic. On those flights, economy class is typically only 30-40% of the cabin. Then there is a small premium economy section, and the remaining half of the plane is dedicated for business class and first class.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Single aisle planes have the same business class seats, adapted for single aisle, but much the same.
Scoundreller 3y ago
I guess this is airline and route specific. Toronto to Paris has planes that look like this on air Canada: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Canada/Air_Canada_Boeing_777-300ER_Three_Class_v4.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Canada/Air_Canada_Boei... (Supposedly seatguru is out of date, just still!)
- josephg 3y ago
  Yeah I just flew Abu Dhabi to Melbourne with Etihad and that was more or less the seat layout on the flight too.
throw0101b 3y ago
> Business travelers make up 12% of airline passengers, but they pay higher rates than other customers and are typically twice as lucrative, accounting for as much as 75% of profits. * https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-revenue-airline-industry-comes-business-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-rev...

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

I know that self driving cars are eyerolling to hear about, but highway self-driving with convergent infrastructure (not the drive-me-thru-Taco-Bell kind) is going to come to trucking, for the basic reason that you can drive the trucks overnight at a minimum. Smaller planes seem mostly designed for shorter flights, but if I can get a better-than-sober-me stats on highways, and I can sleep in a car while it drives me to another city, why would I fly? - take a lot more stuff with you - for families it will be insanely cheaper - if an EV, it will be lower carbon - I will have a car for last mile/city driving when I get there - much better seats I honestly think the 20 year prognosis for <800 mile flights is going to be really bad. 800 miles flying is 2 hours + taxiing + waiting in line + transport to airport + giving yourself enough buffer + land/get luggage + ground transport. That is probably 5-6 hours in many situations. So a 10-11 hour drive where you don't have to pay attention and can sleep overnight would be my primary choice if I could do it now. Even if there was, say, a 1500 mile trip to florida, if there is someone to visit along the way, I'll drive. Anyway, the gist of it is that I think large planes or trips with water barriers are what the industry will end up with, I don't anticipate some massive groundswell of air travel demand for shorter flights in the long run.

euroderf 3y ago
You've also made the case for railway travel, except the last mile car. But that last mile car is an impediment in a proper (dense) city with proper transit.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  Railway travel has schedules you have to adhere, and all the boarding/unboarding overhead, and luggage limitations. With the high expense of rail infrastructure (e.g. transporation in cities) I always wondered if you simply designated a dedicated paved lane for busses if that would simply be cheaper.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Buying tix online makes rail travel a lot simpler, ektually. But there's a place for buses too, and a crossover point where increased traffic makes rail better long-term. But long-dx on buses is no fun. Trains rule. Get some shuteye, or watch the world go by.

Scoundreller 3y ago

Very long range is de facto inefficient because you have to bunker so much fuel. Intermediate stop operations would be more efficient (stopping midway just to refuel, if not scramble passengers around to/from different destinations)

silvestrov 3y ago
But then you have more tear and wear on the airframe due to having twice the number of landings and take off.
martinclayton 3y ago
Indeed! Carry burn about 4% per hour a pilot friend mentioned last week. Flying is more like space flight than driving in this respect.

cm2187 3y ago

I think there will be an A380 again, unless you think air traffic will go down, and I don't see any trend of that. Number of runways is a much tougher constraint to expand than plane size, so the segment of point to point occupied by A330/350 and B787/777 will ultimately be also saturated and require bigger planes.

brigade 3y ago
Those runways still serve a ton of 737/A320 flights that have plenty of room to be upgauged to widebodies, and most of those runways could increase capacity further still if FAA/ICAO decide newer tech can safely reduce IFR separation. Even with runway congestion, a big problem with an A380 successor is that any new commercial jet needs the fuel economy of two engines to have a chance of selling enough to be worth developing. Which in turn means that an A380-sized twin engine plane needs engines with ~50% more thrust than the current world record from a GE9X, which is already approaching material limits... A new 747-like plane with a partial double deck might eventually make business sense to develop within our lifetimes... But I think a blended wing (lol) is more likely than ever seeing another full double decker like the A380.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  A380 also ended up having too much dead weight to be useful for freight. We will probably see a double decker if only because the Middle Eastern megahub airlines need it for their business models to work.
- cm2187 3y ago
  But intuitively efficiency per passenger should only be the binding metric if you are not capacity constrained. ie it may be economical to fly four-engine planes with nearly twice the number of passengers, than not meeting the demand on a route because it is saturated.