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

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by jpatokal »

detuur wrote: post #116

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…

Delhi-Mumbai and Shanghai-Beijing are already in the world's top 10 busiest routes, but AFAIK there is no regular A380 service on either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

jpatokal wrote: post #121
detuur wrote: post #116

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…

Delhi-Mumbai and Shanghai-Beijing are already in the world's top 10 busiest routes, but AFAIK there is no regular A380 service on either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jpatokal wrote: post #121
detuur wrote: post #116

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…

Delhi-Mumbai and Shanghai-Beijing are already in the world's top 10 busiest routes, but AFAIK there is no regular A380 service on either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...

Beijing to Guangzhou has 380 service via China Southern. Beijing to shanghai isn’t that far, and is better served by more-often service to compete with high speed trains that are also viable.

China Eastern even has an express desk for shanghai flights and they are given priority to prevent all too common Beijing delays.

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

#124

Post by kristofferR »

adjkant wrote: post #66
peterjlee wrote: post #48

Here's a relevant video from Wendover productions explaining why Boeing 787 is doing better than A380. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlIdzF1_b5M

This was super helpful in laying it out and surprisingly worth the time.

That's Wendover for you. All his air travel videos are great.

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

#125

Post by coredog64 »

zerkten wrote: post #31
bsaul wrote: post #21

Not sure airplane not selling is really the core issue. Someone working closely with airbus management once told me the real problem with that plane was that they allowed way too much customization of the interiors. No two planes would end up being the same, and so the costs of building the plane weren’t easily going down after some time. The end result was that airbus is actually loosing money on each plane they sel…

I'm not sure I buy that reason, unless the customization cost extends to the equipment and process for building out the interior. Surely this cost would be identified and then the options available reduced? But much harder, if your need to retool for a cheaper interior.

Around 1995, Boeing had a HUGE project to address this (DCAC/MRM). I wasn't deep in the project, but the stories I heard were crazy. Something like 30 shades of white paint, or parts that were functionally the same having two or more part numbers.

The one thing that has stuck with me is the statement that you can't undrill a hole. It was the same thing the parent poster mentioned: Every operator wanted their galley/lavatory to be in some Goldilocks location, and that required drilling holes. Boeing pushed hard to limit the choices in order to bring cost down.

Those holes also caused problems if a customer resequenced or walked away from a partially built plane. Southwest would want a discount if you were selling them a plane that was originally kitted out for someone else.

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

#126

Post by Jdam »

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 also kinda frequent flyer and I can tell you I dont give a s* if I’m flying A330, A380, 767, 777, 787. Once inside, I barely see the difference, just immigration is more annoying if you’re flying A380 and sitting back in coach. I would never spend more money to fly A380. I’m working at a company where certain people hop on a plane every 2.2 days and I don’t even know a single colleague that would share your opinion.

In addition, if you think in Asia the A380 works well, then please tell me why Airbus is making so little money also there.

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

#127

Post by _s »

HeavenFox wrote: post #119
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…

Not OP but I will go out of my way to select Airbus jets; their NVH is noticeably lower than Boeings jets, which results in a far more comfortable travel, especially long-haul (A380 being up there in terms of comfort).

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

#128

Post by hueving »

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 sounds like your complaint is about chosen seating arrangements by airlines rather than the planes themselves. The 787 11-wide configuration has little to do with the plane. You can be packed like a sardine on a 380 as well.

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

#129

Post by Gibbon1 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #69

One interesting point, about airports being at capacity. A third runway at London Heathrow is estimated to cost roughly the same as the entire A380 program! In a world where an additional runway (at the most congested airport) costs as much as creating a futuristic gigantic airplane from scratch, maybe it's not that crazy? (Not sure how the additional spacing and other costs with the A380 add into this, but still int…

Reminds me, got called for mentioning the cost of expanding California's airports as a justification for California's high speed rail.

Combining the two would make more sense, meaning put the airport farther away where land is cheap and the flights won't annoy people and run passengers too and from via a high speed shuttle. Bonus you can put security on the pickup side of the rail line.

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

#130

Post by rdtsc »

andrewjl wrote: post #44
mschuster91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you cannot simply ship a not "absolutely perfect" plane. Or, actually, it's not a problem but a blessing given that there were no commercial flight related fatalities in the USA in 2017 (per http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-201801... ). No doubt: Without the drastic levels of regulation the FAA (and JAA) impose on civilian flight, fatalities would be orders of magnitude higher…

2017 also saw no commercial flight related fatalities worldwide, in large part due to the NTSB (and it's non-US equivalents) process of getting the root cause of each crash and putting in place systems or procedures to eliminate that particular failure domain.

I have heard of that applied to software development - when a bug happens there two bugs effectively to fix: the bug itself and the reason the bug slipped past testing and QA.
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