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They neglected to mention the biggest reason for the big jets. There are greater numbers of dense urban areas, and runway building is not matching the increase

They neglected to mention the biggest reason for the big jets. There are greater numbers of dense urban areas, and runway building is not matching the increase in demand for travel. The runways limit the number of aircraft movements, so demand is handled by increasing the size of the planes. (It can take decades for new runways to be built. See London.) The big jets aren't expected to be useful on every route, but rather on central routes to big hubs. The counter argument is people prefer direct (point to point) routes aka long thin routes, for which you need a smaller efficient plane. Of course both are true, and the debate is really how much of each there will be over time. It looks like big urban areas in Asia will produce lots of A380 demand, if only they wait. The article mentions 50% off list prices, but for context list prices are a known joke in the industry. Each deal is kept secret, but gossip and calculations show that 50% is about normal these days. http://theblogbyjavier.com/2015/02/26/boeing-list-prices-increases-vs-discounts-increases-update-for-2014/ http://theblogbyjavier.com/2015/02/26/boeing-list-prices-inc... The aircraft manufacturing industry is fascinating with many parallels to software development, with the difference being well over 20 year life spans for products. Should you develop version 2 of your product with all the great things that come with that, but still have to support version 1 for a long time? Should you do continuous improvement on the product, but the result being differences for the same item? Other participants such as lessors get upset when you harm residual values of older product with new product, which then means they charge more for new product. Do you do benchmarking that shows you winning due to unrealistic configurations, or lose benchmarks by being realistic? How much can you get away with vapourware? What improvements (in hard numbers) do you promise for something that isn't developed yet, that has financial penalties should you miss, and makes the product less attractive if you underpromise? How do you do new/updated product without Osborning your existing product? I recommend this blog for following the industry - http://leehamnews.com/ http://leehamnews.com/ - and this one which is more focussed on engines - http://aeroturbopower.blogspot.com/ http://aeroturbopower.blogspot.com/

dalke 12y ago
The article says "Airlines still need jumbo jets but only for certain polar flights ... and busy routes where landing slots are scarce". I believe that second clause (italics mine) concerns the start of your comment.
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  It does a bit, but there is devil in the details. eg it is the airports, not the routes where the issue arises. Government involvement aside, the slots at constrained airports are typically all allocated/owned. To get a slot you have to pay someone else for it, and that gets expensive. To make it work economically you want more passengers, which means a bigger aircraft.
  - Retric 12y ago
    There is also time of day considerations. You can generally more easily sell seats for a noon departure than a midnight one. So, even regional airports with significant spare capacity often have some contention.
  - aidenn0 12y ago
    I'm still waiting for someone to explain why United seems to have over a dozen flights from LAX to IAD every day, nearly all of them on narrow-body aircraft? I've flown that specific leg about a hundret times now and all but once the largest aircraft I was on was a 757. It seems like it would be more economical to eliminate one or two of those flights and use a 777 instead.
    - rogerbinns 12y ago
      It depends on the kind of travellers. Business travellers are far more price elastic, preferring schedule. Less frequent but larger planes means giving up the most lucrative passengers to your competition. The best aircraft to use is one where you fill every seat and no one with money is left waiting. Having empty seats get very expensive very quickly because you are hauling unused weight in the plane, fuel to carry that weight, fuel to carry that fuel, heavier/bigger landing gear, bigger airport fees (typically based on plane maximum weight), more expensive maintenance etc. There is also the opportunity cost where the bigger plane could be used on a more profitable route. You should see Cathay Pacific flights between London and Hong Kong. For example on Sundays they have the following departures from HKG to LHR: 00:20 00:35 09:10 14:35 23:55 - there is also a 23:55 on the Saturday making that 3 flights in under an hour. All of them are on the 777-300ER. You see something similar for LHR to HKG. Cathay doesn't have any A380s and really seem like they could use a few!
51Cards 12y ago
Bigger aircraft can cause another congestion issues however. Spacing between take-offs has to be increased due to turbulence effects and gate spacing becomes an issue if you can't get two of them side by side.
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  The spacing (called separation in aviation) is based on aircraft weight (which is similar to size). A heavy can take off following another heavy sooner than a medium or light can take off following another heavy. This means you can increase capacity by substituting bigger aircraft for smaller ones. Some separation details are listed at http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Mitigation_of_Wake_Turbulence_Hazard http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Mitigation_of_Wake_Turbul... Gate spacing is an issue, but it is considerably easier to build more ramps and terminals, or update existing ones. The next generation 777 has folding wingtips for its longer wings so they still fit in code E spaces and taxiways. The largest is code F where a plane must fit in an 80 metre by 80 metre box. The A380 wingspan coincidentally is 79.75 metres. Landing fees at these airports are typically based on the aircraft weight, so airports are happy to have more passengers. They get more revenue, there is more incentive for connecting flights, there is more revenue for retail, parking etc. Bigger planes with more passengers are generally a nice problem for them to have.

dalke 12y ago

The article says "Airlines still need jumbo jets but only for certain polar flights ... and busy routes where landing slots are scarce". I believe that second clause (italics mine) concerns the start of your comment.

rogerbinns 12y ago
It does a bit, but there is devil in the details. eg it is the airports, not the routes where the issue arises. Government involvement aside, the slots at constrained airports are typically all allocated/owned. To get a slot you have to pay someone else for it, and that gets expensive. To make it work economically you want more passengers, which means a bigger aircraft.
- Retric 12y ago
  There is also time of day considerations. You can generally more easily sell seats for a noon departure than a midnight one. So, even regional airports with significant spare capacity often have some contention.
- aidenn0 12y ago
  I'm still waiting for someone to explain why United seems to have over a dozen flights from LAX to IAD every day, nearly all of them on narrow-body aircraft? I've flown that specific leg about a hundret times now and all but once the largest aircraft I was on was a 757. It seems like it would be more economical to eliminate one or two of those flights and use a 777 instead.
  - rogerbinns 12y ago
    It depends on the kind of travellers. Business travellers are far more price elastic, preferring schedule. Less frequent but larger planes means giving up the most lucrative passengers to your competition. The best aircraft to use is one where you fill every seat and no one with money is left waiting. Having empty seats get very expensive very quickly because you are hauling unused weight in the plane, fuel to carry that weight, fuel to carry that fuel, heavier/bigger landing gear, bigger airport fees (typically based on plane maximum weight), more expensive maintenance etc. There is also the opportunity cost where the bigger plane could be used on a more profitable route. You should see Cathay Pacific flights between London and Hong Kong. For example on Sundays they have the following departures from HKG to LHR: 00:20 00:35 09:10 14:35 23:55 - there is also a 23:55 on the Saturday making that 3 flights in under an hour. All of them are on the 777-300ER. You see something similar for LHR to HKG. Cathay doesn't have any A380s and really seem like they could use a few!

51Cards 12y ago

Bigger aircraft can cause another congestion issues however. Spacing between take-offs has to be increased due to turbulence effects and gate spacing becomes an issue if you can't get two of them side by side.

rogerbinns 12y ago
The spacing (called separation in aviation) is based on aircraft weight (which is similar to size). A heavy can take off following another heavy sooner than a medium or light can take off following another heavy. This means you can increase capacity by substituting bigger aircraft for smaller ones. Some separation details are listed at http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Mitigation_of_Wake_Turbulence_Hazard http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Mitigation_of_Wake_Turbul... Gate spacing is an issue, but it is considerably easier to build more ramps and terminals, or update existing ones. The next generation 777 has folding wingtips for its longer wings so they still fit in code E spaces and taxiways. The largest is code F where a plane must fit in an 80 metre by 80 metre box. The A380 wingspan coincidentally is 79.75 metres. Landing fees at these airports are typically based on the aircraft weight, so airports are happy to have more passengers. They get more revenue, there is more incentive for connecting flights, there is more revenue for retail, parking etc. Bigger planes with more passengers are generally a nice problem for them to have.