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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

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.
- afafsd 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. Indeed. You can find a few people willing to complain about it, but you can find a few people willing to complain about just about anything, and that's how we fill the 24-hour news cycle.
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
> Plus any US airline which purchased the A380 would get negative PR from it. Yes, the airline would get negative PR. But not for the reason you claim. The article has the real reason: Shares of United would plunge at least 10 percent if it bought A380s, according to one analyst, because of concerns that they would bring too much capacity into the market. If you add up all the US airline profits and losses in their history, until recently the sum would be negative. US airlines routinely enter and exit bankruptcy. Now they're finally making money again. Big money. So it would be insane for US airlines to buy the A380 now. But not for "Us. Vs. them" reasons. For much smarter business reasons.
mpyne 12y ago
> I'm sure most Americans enjoyed it however. As an American I was interested enough to keep researching Airbus models on Wikipedia. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Airbus has manufacturing even in the U.S. for its airline production programs, and has even been expanding that production capacity. I have flown on many intra-US flights on non-American planes (including Airbus, Bombardier and even Brazil's Embraer)... sometimes the market actually works! I also read the NY Times article, and they covered quite in detail the successes and strengths of the A380 as espoused by the CEO of Emirates. Far from being a "hit piece" against the A380, the article appeared to me to be a simple-enough exposition of two major airline manufacturers taking different gambles about the future of aviation. Would this story only be accurate if it were published by Le Monde or Der Spiegel? To return to your point, the whole point to Boeing's 787 development was to compete with "longer-range international" routes... at such a long range, in fact, that two cities could be directly connected instead of requiring the spoke-and-hub model that the A380 is optimized for. And in any event, U.S. carriers do indeed run long range international routes that would theoretically be up the A380's alley, but the problem is as you state: "you'd never fill THAT many seats" to make A380 profitable for U.S. airlines (as the NYT articles states, these airlines returned to profitability by reducing excess capacity).
- chiph 12y ago
  I did a quick check - to fly from Los Angeles to Santiago Chile (to pick a long-distance route entirely within the Americas) most every airline I noticed was doing it in two hops (typically LAX -> Lima -> Santiago) with narrow-body jets, usually an A-321 or similar. If you were to leave from Miami, there are a couple of non-stops available, using either a 767 or 787. But the rest would have things like overnight layovers midway. So I agree with you - if the demand were there, then a US carrier would lease an A-380 or four, so that they get more fares for the same fuel.

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.

afafsd 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. Indeed. You can find a few people willing to complain about it, but you can find a few people willing to complain about just about anything, and that's how we fill the 24-hour news cycle.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago

> Plus any US airline which purchased the A380 would get negative PR from it. Yes, the airline would get negative PR. But not for the reason you claim. The article has the real reason: Shares of United would plunge at least 10 percent if it bought A380s, according to one analyst, because of concerns that they would bring too much capacity into the market. If you add up all the US airline profits and losses in their history, until recently the sum would be negative. US airlines routinely enter and exit bankruptcy. Now they're finally making money again. Big money. So it would be insane for US airlines to buy the A380 now. But not for "Us. Vs. them" reasons. For much smarter business reasons.

mpyne 12y ago

> I'm sure most Americans enjoyed it however. As an American I was interested enough to keep researching Airbus models on Wikipedia. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Airbus has manufacturing even in the U.S. for its airline production programs, and has even been expanding that production capacity. I have flown on many intra-US flights on non-American planes (including Airbus, Bombardier and even Brazil's Embraer)... sometimes the market actually works! I also read the NY Times article, and they covered quite in detail the successes and strengths of the A380 as espoused by the CEO of Emirates. Far from being a "hit piece" against the A380, the article appeared to me to be a simple-enough exposition of two major airline manufacturers taking different gambles about the future of aviation. Would this story only be accurate if it were published by Le Monde or Der Spiegel? To return to your point, the whole point to Boeing's 787 development was to compete with "longer-range international" routes... at such a long range, in fact, that two cities could be directly connected instead of requiring the spoke-and-hub model that the A380 is optimized for. And in any event, U.S. carriers do indeed run long range international routes that would theoretically be up the A380's alley, but the problem is as you state: "you'd never fill THAT many seats" to make A380 profitable for U.S. airlines (as the NYT articles states, these airlines returned to profitability by reducing excess capacity).

chiph 12y ago
I did a quick check - to fly from Los Angeles to Santiago Chile (to pick a long-distance route entirely within the Americas) most every airline I noticed was doing it in two hops (typically LAX -> Lima -> Santiago) with narrow-body jets, usually an A-321 or similar. If you were to leave from Miami, there are a couple of non-stops available, using either a 767 or 787. But the rest would have things like overnight layovers midway. So I agree with you - if the demand were there, then a US carrier would lease an A-380 or four, so that they get more fares for the same fuel.