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Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

reuters.com

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Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#141

Post by org3432 »

gsnedders wrote: post #105
org3432 wrote: post #80

Naive question, but what routes does Emirates fly that could make an A380 worth it? That's a big plane.

Dubai is slot contained, and they fly to plenty of other slot contained airports. As far as I'm aware, London to Dubai alone has seven daily A380 flights. More generally, Emirates have gone for a single daily A380 flight instead of more frequent flights to many destinations.

Interesting, it just seems hard to believe the UAE with a population of little more than Austria would have that many travelers.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#142

Post by ComputerGuru »

Robotbeat wrote: post #113
ComputerGuru wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're also becoming richer as a species. I don’t understand this. Isn’t richness/poorness relative to something else in the same pool? What other species are you comparing us to? Because it’s a zero sum game otherwise; a pie chart where percentages count but can be scaled up or down without effect.

No, it's not merely relative. I mean we can martial more resources to do as we please. Just like most people (in developed countries at least) can drive around 50-60mph in a vehicle (a car in 1st world or a scooter in developing countries) but 200, 300 years ago they couldn't. We've become richer. It's like this: when public transit advocates ask why move a ton of metal around per person when literally stuffing them…

Sorry, your terminology threw me off. I get what you’re saying, and as you can see from my quality-of-life replies in this comment thread, I don’t disagree.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#143

Post by csours »

Yizahi wrote: post #90

I may be dumb but I don't understand the numbers in the article. They write Airbus has "96 unfilled orders" then say that "47 of those are unlikely to be delivered". So they won't be ordered or won't be delivered? If it's the latter then won't it be breach of contract on Airbus side and just kinda plain stupid? And if it's the former that doesn't it contradict previous number of 96 units ordered? Next they say "deliv…

6 could be in production right now.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#144

Post by kogepathic »

undersuit wrote: post #95
valuearb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lie. Bombardiers planes don’t compete with any Boeing planes. Yet still Boeing flexed their lobbyists.

Delta chose to go with Bombardier planes in this case[1] which directly affected Boeing's ability to sell them their equivalents. That sounds like competition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Bo...

> which directly affected Boeing's ability to sell them their equivalents.

Boeing's bid to Delta was some Embraer E series they had from an Air Canada trade-in. [1]

No model of 737MAX competes with the C Series for Delta's RFP. Both Boeing and Delta have readily admitted this when asked (see [1]).

Boeing has nothing in the market to compete with regional jets like the C Series. This is exactly why they are now looking into buying Embraer to counter Airbus acquiring a majority stake in the C Series. [2]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotthamilton5/2016/05/17/embra...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/boeing-is...

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#145

Post by myrandomcomment »

samfisher83 wrote: post #127
avh02 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flew the A350 and 787 a week apart (recently, via Qatar) - the A350 is a surprisingly quiet machine on the inside. The 787's larger windows (combined with being tall) means I get an almost 360 view around the plane through windows around me over people's heads (until they dim everybody's windows by default * shakes fist * )

The 787 windows seem to block cell phone signals. Their tinting technology seems a a little unnecessary.

The reason for the tinting is really simple - weight. You have to be able to shade the windows and doing this way is less weight then have pull down screens. Everything in aircraft design here comes down to weight reduction.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#146

Post by gok »

dawhizkid wrote: post #24
code4tee wrote: post #6

Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn’t been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built). The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling…

I don't think they're scrambling. The A350 is their 787 competitor and looks amazing. Can't wait to try it out.

Size-wise the A350 is more like a 777; the 787 is more directly competitive with A330neo.

Are they scrambling? Not really. Boeing is making a fair amount more money than Airbus but they’re producing about the same number of planes (Airbus probably has a slight edge in order count). Airbus was formed as a program to address Europe’s concern about relying on North America for airliners. It’s not clear even today that they really care about actually making money from selling airplanes.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#147

Post by reaperducer »

bobity wrote: post #86

Lots of yanks commenting who have never been in an A380, as it's only used in euro, Mid East and Asian airlines. The A380 is so much more comfortable than any 747 I've been on. If you do long haul on an A380 in any class you won't go back...

> Lots of yanks commenting who have never been in an A380, as it's only used in euro, Mid East and Asian airlines

You seem to be under the impression that European, Middle Eastern, and Asian airlines don't fly to the United States.

I've been on the A380 at least a dozen times on the LAX-NRT route. It also flies into ATL, JFK, SFO, IAD, BOS, MIA, and IAH.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#148

Post by stergios »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #68
stergios wrote: post #20

Boeing most likely has already delivered the last passenger 747 ever to be built [1]. Cargo demand will keep the line alive, but at greatly reduced numbers, which in total have been 1536 units since it's commercial introduction in 1970 [2]. IMHO, the A380 was not created to meet market demand, but instead was conceived to meet the national interests of England and France's own military industrial complex, and in that…

Shouldn't that be France and Germany? From the top of my head the largest production facilities with most employees are in those countries.

Yes, you are right; Germany should be included, as today Airbus is a consolidation of the European aerospace industry.

My memory was clouded by the highly publicized initial wiring harness problems. The England and France teams were using CATIA Version 5, while the Germany and Spain teams were using CATIA Version 4.

For the other children posts regarding my comment about the military industrial complex, I meant to imply that by being able to build the A380 Airbus as a corporation increased it's own system wide capabilities. Boeing enjoys this same benefit, which ranges from both technological capabilities as well as financial advantages.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#149

Post by mpweiher »

mdasen wrote: post #129
mpweiher wrote: post #33

I think coverage of the A380 often misses the point that at the time, Boeing's 747 simply had no competition, whereas all of Airbus's planes did. So Airbus pretty much had to create the A380 in order to protect its other lines from cross-subsidy by this unopposed cash-cow. And, also missing from almost all the coverage is the fact that this worked: if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead. Official back…

Boeing made a bet on the 787. However, as you note, that's an easier bet to make when you already have the 747. Boeing already had a jumbo. It's easy to make a bet on twin-engines getting certified for longer ocean crossings when you already have the 747. There's a lot of things that Boeing bet on with the 787 and you're totally right that it's way easier to make those bets when you already have the 747. However, the…

Excellent points, and I agree that the switch in the market certainly was a large component, and probably the larger component. I still think that Airbus simply could not not do the A380, just as a defensive move and hedge, and that it may have served a commercial purpose even if it didn't manage to be profitable on its own.

> constrained slots [..] certainly money [..]

Are slots primarily a money problem? My understanding was that the constraint is not so much their expense, but simply non-availability. For example, one of the most valuable assets of Air Berlin apparently is their slots[1]. AFAICT, these were/are not available on the open market, they get doled out by some mechanism.

[1] https://www.srnnews.com/sale-of-air-berlin-slots-offers-rare...

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#150

Post by blunte »

mpweiher wrote: post #33

I think coverage of the A380 often misses the point that at the time, Boeing's 747 simply had no competition, whereas all of Airbus's planes did. So Airbus pretty much had to create the A380 in order to protect its other lines from cross-subsidy by this unopposed cash-cow. And, also missing from almost all the coverage is the fact that this worked: if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead. Official back…

I'm sure this is a VERY complex issue. But two things come to my mind.

1 - Maintenance and tooling for the 747 series has been around for a long time; so moving to 380 would likely be a much bigger deal in that regard than moving to the latest 747 variant.

2 - Fewer airport options for 380 vs 747 means less flexibility of how the fleet is deployed.

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