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Oversize Expectations for the Airbus A380

49 points by ak86 12y ago

afafsd 12y ago
Seems like a rather US-based perspective. It's true that no US-based airline has bought one. That's because the US has so many cities, that it makes sense for airlines to serve (say) SEA-NRT and SFO-NRT with separate smaller planes rather than just one honking big plane from SFO-NRT. Countries whose airlines have bought A380s are countries where the vast majority of international air traffic is concentrated through one or two hubs. Singapore, Germany, France, Great Britain, Australia, Dubai, Malaysia, and so forth. It's true they've sold "only" four hundred of 'em. I have no idea whether that makes them a profit or not, and I doubt anyone outside Airbus knows that either, the economics of airliner manufacturing seems to be a pretty closely guarded secret (even the actual prices of planes are a secret...)
- x0x0 12y ago
  The article pointed out estimated R&D costs are $25B, and they're having to sell them for not much over manufacturing cost (so no, they aren't making a net profit, though almost certainly an operational profit). While that's an estimate, I doubt R&D expenditures are really that closely held; they can probably be estimated pretty well both from financial reports and from leakage from all the EU government entanglements of Airbus.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Just 10 airlines besides Emirates have taken delivery of 380s. Only 5 of those have taken delivery of 10 or more. The largest 380 customer after Emirates, Singapore, has orders for 70 350s and is a launch customer of the 787 with 30 orders, but just 5 orders for the 380. It's true that the market for the 380 is larger outside of the Americas. It would have to be, because the 380 has zero Americas customers.
  - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    What was the point of that very strange "random numbers about 380 orders" paragraph? I don't get it. You didn't try to make a point with it, and you were jumping all over the place with data (is receiving 10 or more for a single airline an important metric?). Here's a list of orders Vs. deliveries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_... Total Orders: 318 Options: 28 Deliveries: 138 - Emirates: 50 delivered - Singapore Airlines: 19 - Lufthansa: 12 - Qantas: 12 - Air France: 10 - Korean Air: 10 - British Airways: 6 - Malaysia Airlines: 6 - Thai Airways International: 6 - China Southern Airlines: 5 - Asiana Airlines: 2 deliveries
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Let me try to rephrase. Leave Emirates aside for a moment. Singapore is the largest buyer of 380s after Emirates. But unlike Emirates, for whom the 380 is the second-largest component of the fleet, the 380 makes up only a small part of Singapore's fleet. Moreover, the trend at Singapore is away from the 380, and towards the 350 and the 747. It is also probably not a coincidence that Emirates and Singapore are state-sponsored airlines. Lufthansa is also a state-supported airline, the flag carrier of Germany, and recipient of significant subsidies from the German government. Lufthansa is also canceling orders for the 380.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  Plus any US airline which purchased the A380 would get negative PR from it. While most US airline companies operate airbus aircrafts, the A380 was really marked within the US as "Us. Vs. them" type aircraft (not least of it as it was a flagship) where it was American manufacturing under attack (Boeing 747) by a foreign competitor. So the first US airline company who buys one is going to get attacked by every single "I only buy American" type, of which there seem to be plenty of in the US (e.g. "it is anti-American to buy abroad!" "Don't you support American jobs?!" and so on). I would also like to add that the A380 isn't really even competing for inter-US routes as it is too expensive to get up to altitude and you'd never fill THAT many seats on those routes. It is better as a longer range international aircraft (e.g. routes across the pacific or atlantic, europe to asia, etc). The only internal routes it might do well on are for example New York City to Las Vegas, California to DC, basically high volume and long range. I won't comment too much on the article specifically as it is quite obviously bias and had an agenda before pen hit page. I'm sure most Americans enjoyed it however.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    You picked an argument that has a high bar to clear, because, as you noted, Airbus planes are very prevalent among US carriers. Jetblue, for instance, flies mostly Airbus planes. So to clear the bar, you have to show that somehow flying Airbus planes is OK, but the 380 in particular is somehow anti-American. It seems far more likely that long-haul hub-and-spoke products just aren't a good fit for the US market. The inefficiency of that model is practically SWA's whole operating thesis, and it's one of the 3 most profitable large airlines in the country.
  - RockyMcNuts 12y ago
    meh... a number of US airlines fly primarily/exclusively Airbus (JetBlue, Virgin America) and they don't don't seem to have suffered a lot of negative PR. The 777 and 787 beat it on fuel economy, and only NYC is really slot-constrained. I'm not even sure if more A380s mean more passenger throughput since the super-jumbo needs longer separation between aircraft on takeoff and landing for wake turbulence. So what's the point? Yeah, it is a negative article, but just seems obvious they took a risk and overestimated the market. When they jumped in with the A350 to compete with the huge orders of the 787 it was a tacit admission Boeing had made the correct market call. Not like there haven't been a ton of negative articles about the 787's problems, Boeing spent $25b on it and they really need to sort out the kinks and ramp up the production rate to make a proper return. I flew an Emirates A380 a couple of years ago and it is a sweet, quiet ride.
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  As the article noted, this isn't just a US thing and actually isn't just an A380 thing. The A380 is just a very high-profile victim of it. The problems are twofold: 1. Four-engine airliners, regardless of size, are losing, basically worldwide, to twin-engine airliners with better fuel consumption. This is why the A380 and 747-8 sales are sluggish. This is why the A340 buyback program exists (airlines can't get rid of the planes since nobody else will buy them), etc. 2. The airline market as a whole is shifting away from the "have a single massive international hub and send all flights there" model -- only a few airlines can really support that, and not coincidentally they're the only ones continuing to buy A380s. This is part of the reason why the 787 and the A350 are selling so well; they enable flights to and from secondary or tertiary hub cities for which there is plenty of demand, just not enough demand to fill daily super-jumbo aircraft. This is why the 787 and the A350 are such a big deal, and why Airbus doubled down and announced a revamp of the A330. Boeing is facing the same problem with its 747-8; the passenger variant just isn't selling, the only airline that's taken delivery (Lufthansa) has announced it may retire them within 5-6 years of acquiring them, and rumor has it Boeing is only keeping the production line open to win the contract to replace the VC-25 (the modified 747 better known as "Air Force One").
  - walterbell 12y ago
    > airline market as a whole is shifting away from the "have a single massive international hub and send all flights there" model Dubai airport is closing in on Heathrow at the #1 spot. If long-haul traffic through Dubai continues to increase, will this change demand for A380s by non-Emirates airlines? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_international_passenger_traffic http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_i...
    - ubernostrum 12y ago
      It is important to understand the two types of traffic at a hub. There is connecting traffic -- people who are going from somewhere else to somewhere else and just using the hub as a point to change flights. And there is what the airline folks call "O&D" traffic (which stands for "Origin and Destination") -- people who are either starting their trip at the hub or ending their trip at the hub. Traditionally, hub locations have been chosen based on offering convenient connections to other places, but also on high levels of O&D. Thus, for example, New York in the United States, London in the UK, Frankfurt in Germany, and so on; all of these are convenient locations to get to other parts of their respective countries, but they are also major business and/or tourism centers, meaning lots of people are either based there or want to go there. O&D traffic is typically more valuable to an airline than connecting traffic. But there are now four airlines/hubs which have extremely low O&D traffic, and exist almost solely to provide connections between points in Europe/the Americas and points in south/southeast Asia and Oceania. Those are Emirates (Dubai), Etihad (Abu Dhabi), Qatar (Doha) and Singapore (Changi). This is a very different business model from other airlines, and to an extent it can only work if the carrier and the hub are heavily subsidized by the local government. So there's less incentive for other airlines to fly into those airports; generally it only happens when the airline can partner with the home carrier (as Qantas has done in the past with Singapore, and now does with Emirates, or British Airways connecting to alliance partner Qatar in Doha), but it still isn't as desirable as flying to a place which has significant O&D traffic. Which means it's less likely that the middle-eastern hubs will see significant increases in service from other airlines, and much less likely for them to see lots of other airlines buying A380s to fly to those hubs, because for most of them it just doesn't make financial sense. BA, for example, does fly to Dubai as a connecting point, but does it on a more-economical 777, and uses the A380 for heavier O&D routes like London-Hong Kong and London-Los Angeles.
- Theodores 12y ago
  If you live anywhere near Heathrow then you will see a lot of A380's. In fact it is hard to imagine there are so few of them given how many go flying overhead. Heathrow is a busy airport operating at full capacity. The A380 therefore makes complete sense, there is no other way to increase capacity apart from bigger planes. Hence, from the perspective of anyone living in West London, you have to wonder why airlines would buy anything else. It is all a matter of perspective, very much so. The order books are full for the A380 and it is obvious that there will only ever be a finite need for such a large aircraft. Therefore, if the order books are no longer growing then so what? Maybe the maths doesn't add up, however, keeping those A380s in the air is going to be pretty good business when it comes to spares and repairs. Again, perspective. Compared to those stupid fighter jet programmes the maths really looks a whole lot more plausible for the A380. I think that American sentiment towards European planes is easy to figure out. Cheap and dependable planes, yes, high tech wonders (Concorde, A380), no.
  - idlewords 12y ago
    That's the same attitude we have towards American planes. I wish the sky was dark with SSTs.
  - gsnedders 12y ago
    > Hence, from the perspective of anyone living in West London, you have to wonder why airlines would buy anything else. That assumes that all customers flying into LHR are long-haul customers; BA has a large number of domestic flights from LHR (including some wide-body 767s to EDI/GLA, but mostly narrow-body) and they undoubtedly have an effect on the loading of the A380 flights (if BA decided that the LHR-GLA flights weren't profitable because of the cost of landing slots at LHR, I'd simply fly via somewhere else, hence decreasingly the loading on the A380s).
- ulfw 12y ago
  Very true. I am actually surprised BA hasn't ordered more. Especially as Willie Walsh alluded to how much their customers like them. LHR is slot constrained as are others around the world. No better way than using a slot with as many customers as possible in a magnificent plane like the A380.
mynameishere 12y ago
Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they're on? Do they even know before they get to the airport? If I had to choose between an old 737 with a 4 hour flight, and an A380 with a 6 hour flight (including the layover) there's just no question. And I can appreciate the presence of a bar in the back! It just doesn't matter that much. It seems obvious that an airline is going to focus on initial costs, fuel efficiency, customer preferences, etc. And it's not like they don't sell liquor on 737s...
- walterbell 12y ago
  Frequent fliers who use seatguru and flyertalk would beg to differ. Not only the plane/airframe, but the seating configuration chosen by the airline makes a difference in the passenger experience of a transcontinental flight.
- snoonan 12y ago
  I've flown the NYC -> SIN route on Singapore Air a few times a year for a long time. When they upgraded the route to the A380, it changed a lot about that long haul experience. All things being equal (crew, airline, route, etc), this plane is so much more comfortable for long haul trips. Even economy class. As stupid as it sounds, it feels more like a sky ship than a plane. You can sort of forget you're on a plane. I'd actually prefer NOT to fly one on a local route, though. Too much of a hassle boarding 400 people for a short flights.
- nnethercote 12y ago
  > Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they're on? Depends on the definitions you choose. If you define an "ordinary traveler" as "one who doesn't care what type of plane they're on", then no, an ordinary traveler doesn't care what type of plane they're on. Speaking for myself: the A380 is much quieter than any other plane I've been on. For 15-hour trans-Pacific flights, that's a big deal.
bluthru 12y ago
Does anyone have any data for which plane is more fuel efficient per passenger? Probably the 787?
- Sanddancer 12y ago
  It's hard to find a lot of hard data on either plane, but the 787 has been stated as being 20% more efficient than the 767, and the A380 has been stated as having a per passenger fuel consumption of 81 passenger miles per gallon. So, using the figures I found on wiki [1], it looks like the 787 is fairly considerably, as in using ~75% of the fuel, more efficient than the 787. The A380 may be a big plane, but it's a fairly conventional plane, all things considered. I imagine that if there were a revamp of it with more carbon fiber usage, it could get a lot more interesting. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
  - ulfw 12y ago
    If Airbus NEO's the engines with Rolls Royce Advance and stretches the frame to a possible A380-900 I'd venture a guess and say that gap could be closed, especially on a CASM basis. Provided they keep the production facilities rolling until such a change might happen in the 2020s.
cletus 12y ago
It's interesting how the airline industry has evolved. Years ago going from Australia to Europe typically meant going on the "kangaroo route" [1], typically via Singapore (the Qantas/BA/Singapore connection last year was replaced with a Qantas/Emirate/Dubai alliance). If you flew to continental Europe you often ended up flying to London and catching a local flight. I visited the US in the 90s and ended up using US Air for a bunch of domestic flights. Primarily this was because at the time you could buy, as a foreigner, a number of flight coupons (that worked out to be about $50 each after 3 or so) that were redeemable for a single one-way flight (within a 3 month window). US Air was (and is) pretty much the last holdout of the "hub" airline model in the US. I recall catching all those flights with layovers through Charlotte or Pittsburgh (or was it Philadelphia?). The article is right that many passengers including myself prefer direct flights but there is some variability here. For example, I can fly NYC to SFO for as little as $260 coach return in non-peak periods. More typically it's $500-600. I can fly "First class" (it's not really that but it's a bigger seat with more legroom at least) on AA for $1100 via ORD or DFW. That's actually worth it at times. This compares favourably with the $4000+ AA charges for business on the new A321Ts. Also, why do people prefer direct flights? It is at least in part due to the horrible experience and security theater that is modern air travel. The A321T rollout is an example of what the article is talking about with reducing capacity too. Once complete, AA will end up with less transcon seat capacity. But now there are not many places on the planet I can't get to from a major airport that require more than one layover. Hell, I can get from NYC to Perth, Australia (almost the complete other side of the planet) with one stop in Dubai, Doha or Hong Kong, possibly Tokyo and/or Seoul too. I remember the fanfare the A380 came with 7-10 years ago and the competition with Boeing with what I think was the 747-400X? It was a concept that Boeing lost out on and was scrapped. They dodged a bullet on that one. These days it's hard not to be on a Boeing 777-300ER (sometimes called 77W) for any serious long haul flights. The article makes no mention of this but I MUCH prefer wide body planes (2 aisles not 1) as it gives you a chance of getting a center aisle seat where no one has to clamber over you to get to the bathroom. Ugh. Anyway, this also evokes such boondoggles as the LA-SF "high speed" rail, which looks to be costing $30B, will take 15+ years to build, isn't that fast and is designed to solve a problem that isn't really a problem. The so-called problem is seat capacity between these two cities. It seems like the market is capable of solving this problem with bigger planes no one (currently) wants and prioritizing particular routes. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route
foxylad 12y ago
One factor in favour of the single direct flight in smaller aircraft is the horrendous efficiency of airports. The amount of time spent queuing (checking in, enduring security humiliation, and in departure lounges) is usually a very significant part of the total travel time. And having to do it more than once makes it more than twice as tedious. I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride).
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride). Yet it's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures taken for train passengers. A bomb on a high speed train would lead to the death of hundred of people as well. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the government openly supports the train because it's one of the key investors in its infrastructure.
  - snogglethorpe 12y ago
    > It's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures taken for train passengers No, it's quite rational (whereas knee-jerk calls for trains to adopt airport-style security theatre are not). High-speed trains and airplanes are very different in their "exposure" to terrorist activity, and in their operating environment. For instance: (1) Airplanes are, relatively speaking, very fragile; a relatively small bomb can bring one down, and if one goes down, 99% of the time, all on board will be killed. For a terrorist, it's a tempting target. Trains, on the other hand, even high-speed trains, are relatively quite robust, and even severe train accidents typically only kill a small fraction of the passengers. Trains are extremely long (and the passenger density of high-speed trains relatively low compared to local trains), and the direct effect of a blast would be limited to those in the immediate vicinity. The most you can hope for is to derail the train (which is not at all a given), and even a derailing passenger-train is likely to have many survivors. The worst train accidents in terms of deaths have been due to the effects of extremely specific locations. (2) As famously shown in 9/11, airplanes can be used as (extraordinarily effective) missiles; if you manage to take one over, you can aim at a wide variety of targets. Trains basically cannot be used this way. So if you attack a train, you basically are limited to killing passengers—and as point (1) noted, even that is fairly difficult. (3) Once an airplane is in flight, they're pretty much out of reach. Trains, on the other, because they travel on the ground, are exposed to trackside attack. If you want to attack a train (for whatever reason), your best bet is to place a large bomb by the side of the track, not to try smuggling one on board. [That this has, mostly, not been done is probably more a testament to the low "terrorism yield" from attacking trains than to the difficulty of doing it.] Because of this, the benefit of securing passengers is far lower for trains than it is for airplanes. (4) Because one of the big advantages of trains is easy and fast boarding and disembarking of passengers, at multiple points, with relatively minimal infrastructure and staffing, the costs of extreme security would be far more prohibitive for trains than for airplanes. Given that the advantages of such security would be, at best, very dubious, the costs obviously tend to dominate the discussion. Attacking a train, even a high-speed train, is much more akin to simply attacking any crowded location—a club, a restaurant, a theatre—than it is to attacking an airplane. [Because of this, an attack on a crowded local train is likely to be more effective than an attack on high-speed rail.] You can cause economic effects by damaging infrastructure, but even that is unlikely to be significant. So basically, (a) trains are just not that attractive a target for terrorism, and (b) the (extreme) costs of airport-style security would not justified by the (very minimal) benefits. Despite the overlap in the service they provide, airplanes and trains are simply very different in many ways.
dredmorbius 12y ago
I noticed this sentence in the article: "The A380 was also Airbus’s answer to a problematic trend: More and more passengers meant more flights and increasingly congested tarmacs". Problem is, that hasn't been the case in the United States. Or rather, while passenger miles are still up over the past 14 years, both aviation fuel consumption and departures are down. The US hit peak aviation fuel in 2000. Peak departures occurred in 2005, likely due to a shift to smaller aircraft. Total passenger miles remain up since then, due largely to increased load factors -- reduced seat pitch (spacing) allowing more rows aboard aircraft, and improved scheduling packing more people into those seats. I discovered the peak aviation fuel element when looking into one of several rather unconvincing projects aimed at providing biofuels for commercial aviation (the proposals simply don't scale). http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_biofuel_breakthrough_less_than/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_... Using the US Department of Transportation's "RITA" data, 2013 aviation fuel consumption was 17% below 2000 levels, and less than half of the 2000 prediction. Year 2000 FAA Est 2014 RITA Actual % Difference ------- ------------ ---------------- ------------ 2000 20,177 19,026 -5.7% 2012 33,519 16,003 -52.3% 2013 -- 15,998 -- http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2001-2012/media/Table%2022.pdf http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast... Steve Kopits points out that departures peaked in 2005, two years before the recession started, http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-... See p. 37 of the slide deck: http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/Kopits%20-%20Oil%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20%28SIPA%2C%202014%29%20-%20Presentation%20Version%5B1%5D.pdf http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/... I'm long-term quite bearish on aviation.

49 points by ak86 12y ago

Seems like a rather US-based perspective. It's true that no US-based airline has bought one. That's because the US has so many cities, that it makes sense for airlines to serve (say) SEA-NRT and SFO-NRT with separate smaller planes rather than just one honking big plane from SFO-NRT. Countries whose airlines have bought A380s are countries where the vast majority of international air traffic is concentrated through one or two hubs. Singapore, Germany, France, Great Britain, Australia, Dubai, Malaysia, and so forth. It's true they've sold "only" four hundred of 'em. I have no idea whether that makes them a profit or not, and I doubt anyone outside Airbus knows that either, the economics of airliner manufacturing seems to be a pretty closely guarded secret (even the actual prices of planes are a secret...)

x0x0 12y ago
The article pointed out estimated R&D costs are $25B, and they're having to sell them for not much over manufacturing cost (so no, they aren't making a net profit, though almost certainly an operational profit). While that's an estimate, I doubt R&D expenditures are really that closely held; they can probably be estimated pretty well both from financial reports and from leakage from all the EU government entanglements of Airbus.
tptacek 12y ago
Just 10 airlines besides Emirates have taken delivery of 380s. Only 5 of those have taken delivery of 10 or more. The largest 380 customer after Emirates, Singapore, has orders for 70 350s and is a launch customer of the 787 with 30 orders, but just 5 orders for the 380. It's true that the market for the 380 is larger outside of the Americas. It would have to be, because the 380 has zero Americas customers.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  What was the point of that very strange "random numbers about 380 orders" paragraph? I don't get it. You didn't try to make a point with it, and you were jumping all over the place with data (is receiving 10 or more for a single airline an important metric?). Here's a list of orders Vs. deliveries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_... Total Orders: 318 Options: 28 Deliveries: 138 - Emirates: 50 delivered - Singapore Airlines: 19 - Lufthansa: 12 - Qantas: 12 - Air France: 10 - Korean Air: 10 - British Airways: 6 - Malaysia Airlines: 6 - Thai Airways International: 6 - China Southern Airlines: 5 - Asiana Airlines: 2 deliveries
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Let me try to rephrase. Leave Emirates aside for a moment. Singapore is the largest buyer of 380s after Emirates. But unlike Emirates, for whom the 380 is the second-largest component of the fleet, the 380 makes up only a small part of Singapore's fleet. Moreover, the trend at Singapore is away from the 380, and towards the 350 and the 747. It is also probably not a coincidence that Emirates and Singapore are state-sponsored airlines. Lufthansa is also a state-supported airline, the flag carrier of Germany, and recipient of significant subsidies from the German government. Lufthansa is also canceling orders for the 380.
UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
Plus any US airline which purchased the A380 would get negative PR from it. While most US airline companies operate airbus aircrafts, the A380 was really marked within the US as "Us. Vs. them" type aircraft (not least of it as it was a flagship) where it was American manufacturing under attack (Boeing 747) by a foreign competitor. So the first US airline company who buys one is going to get attacked by every single "I only buy American" type, of which there seem to be plenty of in the US (e.g. "it is anti-American to buy abroad!" "Don't you support American jobs?!" and so on). I would also like to add that the A380 isn't really even competing for inter-US routes as it is too expensive to get up to altitude and you'd never fill THAT many seats on those routes. It is better as a longer range international aircraft (e.g. routes across the pacific or atlantic, europe to asia, etc). The only internal routes it might do well on are for example New York City to Las Vegas, California to DC, basically high volume and long range. I won't comment too much on the article specifically as it is quite obviously bias and had an agenda before pen hit page. I'm sure most Americans enjoyed it however.
- tptacek 12y ago
  You picked an argument that has a high bar to clear, because, as you noted, Airbus planes are very prevalent among US carriers. Jetblue, for instance, flies mostly Airbus planes. So to clear the bar, you have to show that somehow flying Airbus planes is OK, but the 380 in particular is somehow anti-American. It seems far more likely that long-haul hub-and-spoke products just aren't a good fit for the US market. The inefficiency of that model is practically SWA's whole operating thesis, and it's one of the 3 most profitable large airlines in the country.
- RockyMcNuts 12y ago
  meh... a number of US airlines fly primarily/exclusively Airbus (JetBlue, Virgin America) and they don't don't seem to have suffered a lot of negative PR. The 777 and 787 beat it on fuel economy, and only NYC is really slot-constrained. I'm not even sure if more A380s mean more passenger throughput since the super-jumbo needs longer separation between aircraft on takeoff and landing for wake turbulence. So what's the point? Yeah, it is a negative article, but just seems obvious they took a risk and overestimated the market. When they jumped in with the A350 to compete with the huge orders of the 787 it was a tacit admission Boeing had made the correct market call. Not like there haven't been a ton of negative articles about the 787's problems, Boeing spent $25b on it and they really need to sort out the kinks and ramp up the production rate to make a proper return. I flew an Emirates A380 a couple of years ago and it is a sweet, quiet ride.
ubernostrum 12y ago
As the article noted, this isn't just a US thing and actually isn't just an A380 thing. The A380 is just a very high-profile victim of it. The problems are twofold: 1. Four-engine airliners, regardless of size, are losing, basically worldwide, to twin-engine airliners with better fuel consumption. This is why the A380 and 747-8 sales are sluggish. This is why the A340 buyback program exists (airlines can't get rid of the planes since nobody else will buy them), etc. 2. The airline market as a whole is shifting away from the "have a single massive international hub and send all flights there" model -- only a few airlines can really support that, and not coincidentally they're the only ones continuing to buy A380s. This is part of the reason why the 787 and the A350 are selling so well; they enable flights to and from secondary or tertiary hub cities for which there is plenty of demand, just not enough demand to fill daily super-jumbo aircraft. This is why the 787 and the A350 are such a big deal, and why Airbus doubled down and announced a revamp of the A330. Boeing is facing the same problem with its 747-8; the passenger variant just isn't selling, the only airline that's taken delivery (Lufthansa) has announced it may retire them within 5-6 years of acquiring them, and rumor has it Boeing is only keeping the production line open to win the contract to replace the VC-25 (the modified 747 better known as "Air Force One").
- walterbell 12y ago
  > airline market as a whole is shifting away from the "have a single massive international hub and send all flights there" model Dubai airport is closing in on Heathrow at the #1 spot. If long-haul traffic through Dubai continues to increase, will this change demand for A380s by non-Emirates airlines? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_international_passenger_traffic http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airports_by_i...
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    It is important to understand the two types of traffic at a hub. There is connecting traffic -- people who are going from somewhere else to somewhere else and just using the hub as a point to change flights. And there is what the airline folks call "O&D" traffic (which stands for "Origin and Destination") -- people who are either starting their trip at the hub or ending their trip at the hub. Traditionally, hub locations have been chosen based on offering convenient connections to other places, but also on high levels of O&D. Thus, for example, New York in the United States, London in the UK, Frankfurt in Germany, and so on; all of these are convenient locations to get to other parts of their respective countries, but they are also major business and/or tourism centers, meaning lots of people are either based there or want to go there. O&D traffic is typically more valuable to an airline than connecting traffic. But there are now four airlines/hubs which have extremely low O&D traffic, and exist almost solely to provide connections between points in Europe/the Americas and points in south/southeast Asia and Oceania. Those are Emirates (Dubai), Etihad (Abu Dhabi), Qatar (Doha) and Singapore (Changi). This is a very different business model from other airlines, and to an extent it can only work if the carrier and the hub are heavily subsidized by the local government. So there's less incentive for other airlines to fly into those airports; generally it only happens when the airline can partner with the home carrier (as Qantas has done in the past with Singapore, and now does with Emirates, or British Airways connecting to alliance partner Qatar in Doha), but it still isn't as desirable as flying to a place which has significant O&D traffic. Which means it's less likely that the middle-eastern hubs will see significant increases in service from other airlines, and much less likely for them to see lots of other airlines buying A380s to fly to those hubs, because for most of them it just doesn't make financial sense. BA, for example, does fly to Dubai as a connecting point, but does it on a more-economical 777, and uses the A380 for heavier O&D routes like London-Hong Kong and London-Los Angeles.
Theodores 12y ago
If you live anywhere near Heathrow then you will see a lot of A380's. In fact it is hard to imagine there are so few of them given how many go flying overhead. Heathrow is a busy airport operating at full capacity. The A380 therefore makes complete sense, there is no other way to increase capacity apart from bigger planes. Hence, from the perspective of anyone living in West London, you have to wonder why airlines would buy anything else. It is all a matter of perspective, very much so. The order books are full for the A380 and it is obvious that there will only ever be a finite need for such a large aircraft. Therefore, if the order books are no longer growing then so what? Maybe the maths doesn't add up, however, keeping those A380s in the air is going to be pretty good business when it comes to spares and repairs. Again, perspective. Compared to those stupid fighter jet programmes the maths really looks a whole lot more plausible for the A380. I think that American sentiment towards European planes is easy to figure out. Cheap and dependable planes, yes, high tech wonders (Concorde, A380), no.
- idlewords 12y ago
  That's the same attitude we have towards American planes. I wish the sky was dark with SSTs.
- gsnedders 12y ago
  > Hence, from the perspective of anyone living in West London, you have to wonder why airlines would buy anything else. That assumes that all customers flying into LHR are long-haul customers; BA has a large number of domestic flights from LHR (including some wide-body 767s to EDI/GLA, but mostly narrow-body) and they undoubtedly have an effect on the loading of the A380 flights (if BA decided that the LHR-GLA flights weren't profitable because of the cost of landing slots at LHR, I'd simply fly via somewhere else, hence decreasingly the loading on the A380s).
ulfw 12y ago
Very true. I am actually surprised BA hasn't ordered more. Especially as Willie Walsh alluded to how much their customers like them. LHR is slot constrained as are others around the world. No better way than using a slot with as many customers as possible in a magnificent plane like the A380.

mynameishere 12y ago

Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they're on? Do they even know before they get to the airport? If I had to choose between an old 737 with a 4 hour flight, and an A380 with a 6 hour flight (including the layover) there's just no question. And I can appreciate the presence of a bar in the back! It just doesn't matter that much. It seems obvious that an airline is going to focus on initial costs, fuel efficiency, customer preferences, etc. And it's not like they don't sell liquor on 737s...

walterbell 12y ago
Frequent fliers who use seatguru and flyertalk would beg to differ. Not only the plane/airframe, but the seating configuration chosen by the airline makes a difference in the passenger experience of a transcontinental flight.
snoonan 12y ago
I've flown the NYC -> SIN route on Singapore Air a few times a year for a long time. When they upgraded the route to the A380, it changed a lot about that long haul experience. All things being equal (crew, airline, route, etc), this plane is so much more comfortable for long haul trips. Even economy class. As stupid as it sounds, it feels more like a sky ship than a plane. You can sort of forget you're on a plane. I'd actually prefer NOT to fly one on a local route, though. Too much of a hassle boarding 400 people for a short flights.
nnethercote 12y ago
> Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they're on? Depends on the definitions you choose. If you define an "ordinary traveler" as "one who doesn't care what type of plane they're on", then no, an ordinary traveler doesn't care what type of plane they're on. Speaking for myself: the A380 is much quieter than any other plane I've been on. For 15-hour trans-Pacific flights, that's a big deal.

bluthru 12y ago

Does anyone have any data for which plane is more fuel efficient per passenger? Probably the 787?

Sanddancer 12y ago
It's hard to find a lot of hard data on either plane, but the 787 has been stated as being 20% more efficient than the 767, and the A380 has been stated as having a per passenger fuel consumption of 81 passenger miles per gallon. So, using the figures I found on wiki [1], it looks like the 787 is fairly considerably, as in using ~75% of the fuel, more efficient than the 787. The A380 may be a big plane, but it's a fairly conventional plane, all things considered. I imagine that if there were a revamp of it with more carbon fiber usage, it could get a lot more interesting. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
- ulfw 12y ago
  If Airbus NEO's the engines with Rolls Royce Advance and stretches the frame to a possible A380-900 I'd venture a guess and say that gap could be closed, especially on a CASM basis. Provided they keep the production facilities rolling until such a change might happen in the 2020s.

cletus 12y ago

It's interesting how the airline industry has evolved. Years ago going from Australia to Europe typically meant going on the "kangaroo route" [1], typically via Singapore (the Qantas/BA/Singapore connection last year was replaced with a Qantas/Emirate/Dubai alliance). If you flew to continental Europe you often ended up flying to London and catching a local flight. I visited the US in the 90s and ended up using US Air for a bunch of domestic flights. Primarily this was because at the time you could buy, as a foreigner, a number of flight coupons (that worked out to be about $50 each after 3 or so) that were redeemable for a single one-way flight (within a 3 month window). US Air was (and is) pretty much the last holdout of the "hub" airline model in the US. I recall catching all those flights with layovers through Charlotte or Pittsburgh (or was it Philadelphia?). The article is right that many passengers including myself prefer direct flights but there is some variability here. For example, I can fly NYC to SFO for as little as $260 coach return in non-peak periods. More typically it's $500-600. I can fly "First class" (it's not really that but it's a bigger seat with more legroom at least) on AA for $1100 via ORD or DFW. That's actually worth it at times. This compares favourably with the $4000+ AA charges for business on the new A321Ts. Also, why do people prefer direct flights? It is at least in part due to the horrible experience and security theater that is modern air travel. The A321T rollout is an example of what the article is talking about with reducing capacity too. Once complete, AA will end up with less transcon seat capacity. But now there are not many places on the planet I can't get to from a major airport that require more than one layover. Hell, I can get from NYC to Perth, Australia (almost the complete other side of the planet) with one stop in Dubai, Doha or Hong Kong, possibly Tokyo and/or Seoul too. I remember the fanfare the A380 came with 7-10 years ago and the competition with Boeing with what I think was the 747-400X? It was a concept that Boeing lost out on and was scrapped. They dodged a bullet on that one. These days it's hard not to be on a Boeing 777-300ER (sometimes called 77W) for any serious long haul flights. The article makes no mention of this but I MUCH prefer wide body planes (2 aisles not 1) as it gives you a chance of getting a center aisle seat where no one has to clamber over you to get to the bathroom. Ugh. Anyway, this also evokes such boondoggles as the LA-SF "high speed" rail, which looks to be costing $30B, will take 15+ years to build, isn't that fast and is designed to solve a problem that isn't really a problem. The so-called problem is seat capacity between these two cities. It seems like the market is capable of solving this problem with bigger planes no one (currently) wants and prioritizing particular routes. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route

foxylad 12y ago

One factor in favour of the single direct flight in smaller aircraft is the horrendous efficiency of airports. The amount of time spent queuing (checking in, enduring security humiliation, and in departure lounges) is usually a very significant part of the total travel time. And having to do it more than once makes it more than twice as tedious. I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride).

ekianjo 12y ago
> I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride). Yet it's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures taken for train passengers. A bomb on a high speed train would lead to the death of hundred of people as well. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the government openly supports the train because it's one of the key investors in its infrastructure.
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  > It's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures taken for train passengers No, it's quite rational (whereas knee-jerk calls for trains to adopt airport-style security theatre are not). High-speed trains and airplanes are very different in their "exposure" to terrorist activity, and in their operating environment. For instance: (1) Airplanes are, relatively speaking, very fragile; a relatively small bomb can bring one down, and if one goes down, 99% of the time, all on board will be killed. For a terrorist, it's a tempting target. Trains, on the other hand, even high-speed trains, are relatively quite robust, and even severe train accidents typically only kill a small fraction of the passengers. Trains are extremely long (and the passenger density of high-speed trains relatively low compared to local trains), and the direct effect of a blast would be limited to those in the immediate vicinity. The most you can hope for is to derail the train (which is not at all a given), and even a derailing passenger-train is likely to have many survivors. The worst train accidents in terms of deaths have been due to the effects of extremely specific locations. (2) As famously shown in 9/11, airplanes can be used as (extraordinarily effective) missiles; if you manage to take one over, you can aim at a wide variety of targets. Trains basically cannot be used this way. So if you attack a train, you basically are limited to killing passengers—and as point (1) noted, even that is fairly difficult. (3) Once an airplane is in flight, they're pretty much out of reach. Trains, on the other, because they travel on the ground, are exposed to trackside attack. If you want to attack a train (for whatever reason), your best bet is to place a large bomb by the side of the track, not to try smuggling one on board. [That this has, mostly, not been done is probably more a testament to the low "terrorism yield" from attacking trains than to the difficulty of doing it.] Because of this, the benefit of securing passengers is far lower for trains than it is for airplanes. (4) Because one of the big advantages of trains is easy and fast boarding and disembarking of passengers, at multiple points, with relatively minimal infrastructure and staffing, the costs of extreme security would be far more prohibitive for trains than for airplanes. Given that the advantages of such security would be, at best, very dubious, the costs obviously tend to dominate the discussion. Attacking a train, even a high-speed train, is much more akin to simply attacking any crowded location—a club, a restaurant, a theatre—than it is to attacking an airplane. [Because of this, an attack on a crowded local train is likely to be more effective than an attack on high-speed rail.] You can cause economic effects by damaging infrastructure, but even that is unlikely to be significant. So basically, (a) trains are just not that attractive a target for terrorism, and (b) the (extreme) costs of airport-style security would not justified by the (very minimal) benefits. Despite the overlap in the service they provide, airplanes and trains are simply very different in many ways.

dredmorbius 12y ago

I noticed this sentence in the article: "The A380 was also Airbus’s answer to a problematic trend: More and more passengers meant more flights and increasingly congested tarmacs". Problem is, that hasn't been the case in the United States. Or rather, while passenger miles are still up over the past 14 years, both aviation fuel consumption and departures are down. The US hit peak aviation fuel in 2000. Peak departures occurred in 2005, likely due to a shift to smaller aircraft. Total passenger miles remain up since then, due largely to increased load factors -- reduced seat pitch (spacing) allowing more rows aboard aircraft, and improved scheduling packing more people into those seats. I discovered the peak aviation fuel element when looking into one of several rather unconvincing projects aimed at providing biofuels for commercial aviation (the proposals simply don't scale). http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_biofuel_breakthrough_less_than/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_... Using the US Department of Transportation's "RITA" data, 2013 aviation fuel consumption was 17% below 2000 levels, and less than half of the 2000 prediction. Year 2000 FAA Est 2014 RITA Actual % Difference ------- ------------ ---------------- ------------ 2000 20,177 19,026 -5.7% 2012 33,519 16,003 -52.3% 2013 -- 15,998 -- http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2001-2012/media/Table%2022.pdf http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast... Steve Kopits points out that departures peaked in 2005, two years before the recession started, http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-... See p. 37 of the slide deck: http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/Kopits%20-%20Oil%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20%28SIPA%2C%202014%29%20-%20Presentation%20Version%5B1%5D.pdf http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/... I'm long-term quite bearish on aviation.