Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#111

Post by michaelt » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #12

mpweiher wrote: post #2

Putting public pressure on Emirates, by Airbus's outgoing sales chief: "buy now or you won't be able to buy in the future" "Mr. Leahy, the Airbus chief operating officer, said on Monday that the A380’s best days were ahead. Passenger traffic is doubling every 15 years, he said, meaning that the original rationale for the model still holds." They just need to tide it over the lean years. EDIT: clarified what I meant w…

> Putting public pressure on Emirates, by Airbus's outgoing sales chief. Why is making a private conversation public like this a good sales strategy? (I'd argue that it would have the opposite effect by generating distrust.) I'd think "leaking" a conversation like this would be aimed at parties not directly privy to the talks.

Making claims public can sometimes increase their credibility, because when you've told everyone, everyone will know if you break your word.

Of course, it's debatable how much a CEO cares about being seen to break their word; it's not like Elon Musk suffers any negative consequences for announcing over-ambitious delivery dates. And it's hard to believe the embarrassment of ending production of your flagship plane would be smaller than the embarrassment of not doing that when you said you would.

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#112

Post by timb07 » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 11:47 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #33

Can someone with a better understanding of economics than me explain something: How is the "point to point" (direct short flights via Ryanair and the like) beating "hub and spoke"(hubs like London and Frankfurt)? I don't mean for convenience - obviously it's nicer to not have layovers. But I mean economically. In the last 10 years, fuel prices have only gone up, as has environmental awareness, and the A380 is surely…

> the A380 is surely cheaper per passenger than a plane half it's size

Actually it's not. Both the 787-8 and 787-9 (just below and just above half the A380's size by passenger numbers) are more efficient per passenger mile:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#5,000...

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#113

Post by strong_silent_t » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:00 AM UTC

InTheArena wrote: post #85

There are a lot of great books on the founding, planning, engineering and delivering the A380. All of them come to one painful conclusion - the A380 was driven more by politics and enabled by launch aid, rather then by real market need. Airbus has seen the effect of the Arbus 300, Boeing 767 and Boeing 757 in the transatlantic market and knew that large twins capable of going trans-pacific (777 and 787) would similar…

Would you recommend a book on the planning?

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#114

Post by ggm » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

I am a frequent business flyer, 10+ per year international long haul from Australia. I appreciate that from a north american perspective the 380 didn't make sense either economically from the economy which bankrolls Boeing, or strategically from the economy which has specific interests in international flights homed out of its east and west coast population centres.

I can tell you that for the South Pacific, Japan, India, China the 380 makes perfect sense, and if passenger disposable income choices can direct to 380 flights in preference to current generation 777 and 787, they will. I know, because within limits I can do this, and I do, and almost everyone I know who flies transcontinental at this frequency or better does too.

You're mainly discussing supply side logic around wet leasing, dry leasing, models of operation. I am talking about what the consumer side actually wants: In business, its not 11 abreast pack-em-in which is what the 787 has done. Its not the 777 which is a fine beast, but noisy as hell and getting old (refit costs) We love the 380. We prefer to fly the 380. I've flown it on Emirates, Singapore, QANTAS, China Southern and its a premium quality experience. Its worth it.

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#115

Post by barbegal » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:21 AM UTC

InTheArena wrote: post #99

AGoodName wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the A380 and 787 have higher internal cabin pressures (equivalent of 6000ft). All other planes operate at lower pressure. Anything above 6000ft leads to altitude sickness for those who live at ~0ft. https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2017/...

This is really good marketing but not really true. A recent study of pressurization found that 747s tend to be operated at lower pressurization the a380s (which are typically run a bit higher then their rates). Almost 1k feet IIRC. What makes a huge huge difference is humidity. I get off a Denver to narita 787 feeling like it was a long Colorado to California flight, whereas a SFO to Narita flight on a 380 or 747 wre…

The 787 air quality is better for two reasons: it has a higher humidity and it contains less VOCs. The reason for both of these factors is that the 787 is designed to take cabin air directly from the atmosphere rather than from a compressor bleed valve as in every other aircraft.

This was a radical design decision for Boeing because bleed air usually has three key functions: it is hot enough to cause toxic ozone gas to decompose, it is at high pressure so can pressurise the cabin and it is hot so it can heat the cabin. Without bleed air Boeing had to do all these things with new components, they have an ozone filter/catalyst, an electrical compressor and a RAM heat exchanger to heat up the air (basically slows down the air increasing its temperature). The system is more complex but according to Boeing uses less energy [1] and makes servicing the engines easier.

For passengers, external air contains more moisture than the bleed air (air becomes less humid if it is compressed and heated) so the inlet air humidity is around 7% compared to 2% on other planes. But this is still less than the humidity in a typical cabin which is about 10 to 20%. Some of this is residual moisture that is recirculated but most is from passenger respiration and transpiration [2]. Even so the higher inlet humidity coming in can significantly slow down the loss of moisture over a long flight. In addition VOCs and other bleed air contaminants are minimised [3] which Boeing claims means we feel better after a long flight.

[1] http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4...

[2] http://webserver.dmt.upm.es/~isidoro/tc3/Aircraft%20ECS.pdf

[3] https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oam...

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#116

Post by detuur » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

In my personal opinion Airbus needed the A380 to break Boeing's cash cow. The 747 was basically a running money tap at the time the A380 was conceived, and in order to level the playing field, Airbus needed to kill that cow. It's one of the weird strokes of economics where the company has to act against its own short-term interests, in order to create a long-term advantage (or rather, prevent a long-term disadvantage).

Additionally, now they have the tooling, supply lines, know-how, and IP to work at this extra large scale. While this might not translate into profit short-term, it could very well prove to be an interesting long-term asset again. I think in particular this is going to be interesting for them when the middle class of China and India (or Bangladesh) boom, and very heavily trafficked routes pop-up between heavily populated urban centres.

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#117

Post by exidy » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:30 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #57

raz32dust wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't A350 the competitor to Dreamliner? I think A380 was aimed at replacing B747, which it did. Also I feel (no data) that hub and spoke is alive and well. It's just that it is using more efficient, lower capacity flights (B787, A350) which are easier to fill up and maintain.

The 787 replaced the 767 in Boeing's lineup, which in turn was competitor of the 350. The 747 is still incredibly successful for cargo, so the 380 didn't replace it; it is absolutely nuts that AirBus didn't come up with a cargo version of the 380 yet. Next up is the 777, which has higher capacity than the 787/350. However, it is modern enough that it can probably just be upgraded, no new plane is needed.

The Airbus competitor to the 767 is the not the A350, it is the A330, which is ubiquitous outside of NA in the medium haul market. It has been an extremely successful plane for Airbus and will likely continue to be so with the A330neo.

While each company's offerings overlap somewhat, the A350 is a substantially larger plane and competes with the 777.

Widebody twin 2-class capacity (variants):

  767  | 216 / 261 / 296
  A330 |       246 / 300
  787  |       242 / 290 / 330
  A350 |                   325 / 366
  777  |                   313 /     / 396
  777X |                         365 / 414

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#118

Post by EdwardDiego » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:32 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #114

I am a frequent business flyer, 10+ per year international long haul from Australia. I appreciate that from a north american perspective the 380 didn't make sense either economically from the economy which bankrolls Boeing, or strategically from the economy which has specific interests in international flights homed out of its east and west coast population centres. I can tell you that for the South Pacific, Japan, I…

I'm the same, I fly NZ -> DE often and I will choose my flights to get the A380 over the 777 or 787.

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#119

Post by HeavenFox » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:34 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #114

I am a frequent business flyer, 10+ per year international long haul from Australia. I appreciate that from a north american perspective the 380 didn't make sense either economically from the economy which bankrolls Boeing, or strategically from the economy which has specific interests in international flights homed out of its east and west coast population centres. I can tell you that for the South Pacific, Japan, I…

I find it really hard to agree with you. Maybe you flew exclusively in business or first class?

> its not 11 abreast pack-em-in which is what the 787 has done

787 is designed for 8-abreast seating. In reality, carriers almost always went for 9-abreast. 11-abreast is physically impossible. It is possible in an A380 though, and airlines are really considering it.

> ... and its a premium quality experience

How is flying on an A380 premium experience? When you pack more people in the same plane, boarding and deplaning takes longer, food and beverage service takes longer, getting checked luggage takes longer, and the immigration queue gets longer. There's a higher chance a crying baby will be there to ruin your sleep, and I really hate the curvature of the fuselage, which makes it impossible to rest my head against it. Yes, I'd pick a Singapore A380 over a United 787, but it has nothing to do with the type of the plane. It's a soft product problem.

Re: Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production

#120

Post by srinivasan » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #114

I am a frequent business flyer, 10+ per year international long haul from Australia. I appreciate that from a north american perspective the 380 didn't make sense either economically from the economy which bankrolls Boeing, or strategically from the economy which has specific interests in international flights homed out of its east and west coast population centres. I can tell you that for the South Pacific, Japan, I…

It also doesn't make sense domestically within the US. A 5-hour flight from coast to coast is not a particularly efficient use of the A380. The only US domestic route that may be a fit is Honolulu to somewhere in the middle of the mainland (Denver, Dallas, or someplace like that).

It's already used extensively TATL and TPAC.