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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

#191

Post by tallanvor »

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've flown to Australia a couple of times now. The first time I specifically tried to book flights on the A380 since I had never flown on one before. The second time I specifically tried to avoid the A380 because the experience wasn't impressive. The only real advantage the A380 had was that the bathrooms were larger.

I'd love to try the 787, but the only real advantage I expect it to have is that they are able to maintain a higher humidity in the cabin.

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

#192

Post by sho »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #185
sho wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But the A380 takes longer to unload, clean and load again and so takes up gate space for longer. I'm sure it's not long enough to equal three 787s, but it's certainly diminishing returns.

Oh absolutely. You can turn around a small plane in under an hour, a feat you'd be really pushing to do with a 380. Even refuelling for a long haul can take longer than that.

And different constraints apply to different airports. If you have plenty of gates but no landing slots, like Heathrow, you don't mind if the planes hang around a little longer. Atlanta would have the opposite issue with their 5 runways, which could theoretically fill all their gates in just over an hour.

It's a fairly interesting optimisation problem.

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

#193

Post by dx034 »

sho wrote: post #153
jsjohnst wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

London Heathrow, which was mentioned here, is solely restricted by runway capacity. They could increase capacity with mixed mode (using both runways for take off and departure) but the government doesn't allow that.

Loosening the rules at Heathrow (mixed mode and removing restrictions for landings between 5am-6am) could easily boost capacity by 20-30%. I'm sure they'd find space for some more gates, part of the Terminal 1/2/3 area is unused anyway because of construction.

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

#194

Post by dx034 »

sho wrote: post #192
Arn_Thor wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the A380 takes longer to unload, clean and load again and so takes up gate space for longer. I'm sure it's not long enough to equal three 787s, but it's certainly diminishing returns.

Oh absolutely. You can turn around a small plane in under an hour, a feat you'd be really pushing to do with a 380. Even refuelling for a long haul can take longer than that. And different constraints apply to different airports. If you have plenty of gates but no landing slots, like Heathrow, you don't mind if the planes hang around a little longer. Atlanta would have the opposite issue with their 5 runways, which c…

I was always wondering why no one has started using 6/7 doors for loading/unloading. You could get all passengers on/off in less than 10 minutes each, the doors are there.

Cleaning is just a question of how many people work on it and refuelling could be done by 2 trucks I guess? At the moment they just don't need it because the plane won't be turned around faster anyway (boarding with 3 doors takes 20+ min alreay).

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

#195

Post by dx034 »

princeb wrote: post #154
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.

SYD-LHR will come as soon as technically possible. It'll be a 20h flight but can probably mostly be filled with business and premium eco. The yield on that route would be high enough to justify it (SIN-EWR was only so costly because the plane wasn't built for the distance).

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

#196

Post by dx034 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #71
rwmj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just take the seats out and fill it with boxes? What else is needed for a cargo plane?

Supposedly the A380 also has a max weight that would not use all the available volume for cargo. "The A380-F would be able to carry 60% more volume than the 747, but only 28% more weight." https://www.flexport.com/blog/airbus-a380-no-cargo-equivalen...

Is that a restriction? Are cargo planes typically flying at weight capacity? I thought with ecommerce, more lower-weight items are now flown.

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

#197

Post by dx034 »

rurban wrote: post #95
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,…

But this is also the Dubai business model. Nobody wants to stay there, it's just a convenient stop. With more direct flights Dubai will also die. Also the EU is strongly behind this project. This is more than just Airbus or Emirates. So I see no death of the A380, even if the market moved on since.

Dubai won't die but the region won't need 3 super-hubs anymore (DOH, DXB, AUH).

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

#198

Post by dx034 »

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…

Is the loss for Airbus really so dramatic? Maybe having a complete line-up and being prepared in case demand had developed differently made it worth having this loss. Car manufacturers also don't run all models at a profit but still need a full line-up to retain customers. I don't think it's that different for airlines. Airbus makes their money with A320 (plus some from A330 and maybe at some point A350).

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

#199

Post by dx034 »

kristofferR wrote: post #124
adjkant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He's really good but often overly bullish on Boeing. Just because B787 and A380 were developed at the same time doesn't make them comparable. He nearly ignores the A321LR (which is successful because of the new model) and somewhat downplays that the B747-8 (the actual competitor to A380) isn't doing well either. Boeing didn't invest as much money in the B748 so it's not as severe but comparing the A380 with B787 is misleading.

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

#200

Post by dx034 »

matt4077 wrote: post #9
0xB31B1B wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the smaller planes are more efficient and scale better.

There's a limit to scalability at airports, especially the big & busy ones in western metropolis: JFK, LHR, FRA. It's easy to build a new runway, or a new airport, in the desert, or when you can evict anyone in the way. But try doing in a country ruled by law, when the city has long engulfed the airport build in the 60s.

Frankfurt is nowhere near runway capacity. They built another runway <10yrs ago for that reason. Munich is the only airport in Germany somewhat restricted by runway capacity at the moment.
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