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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

#151

Post by sho »

holografix wrote: post #140
HeavenFox wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All the “gets longer” reasons you state here are solved by the “add more staff” and “use more exits” options. I also live in Australia and have flown both the Dreamliner and A380 and if possible will always choose the A380. Far roomier plane, much quieter and even though it may be just a coincidence every time it seems to suffer far less turbulence.

> it seems to suffer far less turbulence

That's not a coincidence. It makes perfect sense that a large heavy aircraft like the 380 will be harder for wind and air pockets to push it around, just like big ships are far more stable than smaller ones. There's a world of difference between coming into (say) Singapore with its turbulent tropical air on a little a320 and a giant like a 380.

I've been on narrowbody flights where we bounced around like we were inside a washing machine; in a 380 i've barely ever had to even pick up my drink!

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

#152

Post by mpweiher »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #108
mpweiher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the points that people want to fly to are those busy airports. New York, London, Tokyo etc. are not random places in the boonies that serve as hubs, they are destinations. And traffic growth to those destinations is huge. Also don’t forget that airspace is also quite congested.

That's not necessarily true. NYC and London serve as huge hubs. 22% of JFK's traffic in 2016 was connecting passengers, aka passengers that did not start nor end their trip in NYC [1]. That's 22% of traffic that you can free up by adding more point-to-point flights and bypassing JFK entirely. ~35% of LHR's traffic was connecting passengers [2]. If you live in a small/midsize city in the eastern US and want to go to E…

Not sure how you can write “that’s not necessarily true” when your numbers confirm what I wrote: the vast majority of the traffic goes to the “hubs”, the connecting traffic is in the minority.

So when total traffic doubles, that’ll be a 160% increase to JFK even if you remove all the “hub” traffic, which is unlikely, and you assume the increase will be evenly distributed, also unlikely.

UPDATE: I don't see how the "direct to smaller airports" is anything but a temporary reprieve that will be overwhelmed by the overall trends: concentration of population in ever larger cities and increasing travel.

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

#153

Post by sho »

jsjohnst wrote: post #142
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…

The problem is the extra capacity of the A380 is possibly negated by the extra spacing it needs due to the hellish jet wash behind it.

That's a relevant point - the 380 needs more separation, typically 3 minutes instead of 2. However most of the big "hub" airports are just as constrained by gate availability as by raw landing slots, and the capacity of the 380 makes up the difference (they get paid by passenger and MTOW).

For example, an airport like heathrow might have 3 gates free and 8 minutes clear air on the runway. They could take 2 a380s at 0 and 3 minutes for ~900 passengers, or 3 787s (0, 2, 4 minutes) for about the same number pax. In both cases the runway is clear at 6 minutes, but with the 380 they have a gate free. If they can get another plane then they're ahead. And the numbers get even better if you replace the 787s with narrowbodies..

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

#154

Post by princeb »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #15

Interning at Boeing in 2005, when the Dreamliner was still 2-3 years away from production, I asked a BD manager if Boeing was worried about A380 (the burning question at the time was "Who is going to win, A380/Airbus or Dreamliner/Boeing"). Without pause, he said "Not worried at all, A380 serves the hub and spoke model, which is dying. People hate layovers, they want more direct flights." Not a hard insight to grasp,…

>People hate layovers, they want more direct flights.

still waiting for direct sin-jfk or syd-lhr.

none exist.

SIN-EWR used to exist, but it was too costly to run.

edit: the new a350-900 ULR delivering this year is capable of flying long distance, so we'll see some of these flights reappear, esp now that fuel is cheap again.

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

#155

Post by King-Aaron »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #149
_s wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

NVH?

Noise/Vibrations/Harshness

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

#156

Post by samtho »

chiph wrote: post #137
Gibbon1 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> where land is cheap and the flights won't annoy people You'd need to back this up with strong zoning. I think it was Sacramento where they put the airport out in the countryside .. and then land developers discovered all this cheap land near it. Sure enough, the new residents started complaining about the noise from takeoffs and landings. Flight paths is one of the things I look at when I pick a new place to live.

I'm from Sacramento. The land that developers built on was formerly designated floodplain (still is a floodplain) but did some trickery to get it cheaply and build houses on it. I believe some rezoning was at play, but regardless, the area around the airport when they built it, was suppose to not ever have houses built on it.

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

#157

Post by sho »

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…

> The 787 still hasn't shown a profit (but it will)

I would say that's yet to be seen. Last I heard they're still making a loss on every plane, something like $28B in the hole with no end in sight. But it's a simplistic measurement anyway - obviously they will be able to use their learnings from that program in future projects, just as Airbus will. Luckily both manufacturers have incredibly profitable narrowbody lines to keep the lights on.

Remember the 380 project was what finally forced Airbus to become a proper integrated company rather than a weird conglomerate of disparate working groups in different countries. I don't think anyone would disagree the project will never recoup its costs but an argument could be made that for the company as a whole it was worth it. You could make similar arguments for the 787 project too - both are indeed extremely interesting endeavours at multiple levels.

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

#158

Post by keir-rex »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #149
_s wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

NVH?

It’s a regular occurrence on HN someone dropping an acronym that is so obscure or specific to the topic at hand, and without explanation, that no amount of googleitsu will find the correct decoding. In this case it was pretty easy,nvh = noise, vibration, harshness.

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

#159

Post by seanmcdirmid »

exidy wrote: post #117
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A3…

I stand corrected, thanks! The 767 is replaced by the 787 still (well, the 767 is still in production for non passenger uses), which exists in the space as a smaller wide body.

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

#160

Post by dingo_bat »

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_...

AFAIK Delhi-Mumbai is served almost completely by A320s and 737s. I doubt most people traveling on that route could afford a 787 or A380 flight.
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