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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

#201

Post by dx034 »

skybrian wrote: post #16
matt4077 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There could be more hubs though. Pittsburgh was once a major hub. Could it come back again? Any other airports like that?

It currently looks like you'll get more direct connections and thus fewer hubs. Some routes will never be direct (rural US to rural Europe) but it's enough to have 1-2 hubs serving those. All major city connections can be direct. However, that will not necessarily reduce congestion for large airports, the NYC area then has to serve more destinations than before (by shifting away from hub traffic to LHR).

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

#202

Post by dx034 »

reacweb wrote: post #183

I am impressed. Most of the HN comments are praise, but A380 is failing because of airlines strategical choice of avoiding hub. Is again the best technical solution killed by intense lobbying ?

All modern planes are similarly advanced. B787 and A350 are as well. A380 is just better known so that more people have flown with it. It's certainly not the best technical solution (designed for larger size which makes it inefficient). Many passengers love it because it's so huge but that doesn't help airlines. Same as with comfort in economy, people like to complain about standards but still end up booking the cheapest flight.

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

#203

Post by dx034 »

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_...

Passengers prefer frequency over aircraft size. DEL-BOM is like JFK-LAX. If capacity allows, airlines should (and do) fly 30 daily A320 instead of 10 daily A380. Fuel consumption of A320neo is lower (esp if you can push utilisation higher) so that there's no real reason to use A380.

Runway capacity also isn't really, A320s (and B737) can be spaced very closely on approach and departure, up to a third of that of a A380.

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

#204

Post by masklinn »

angled wrote: post #136
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.

> 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. This is exactly what Hong Kong did: http://www.mtr.com.hk/en/customer/services/complom_checkin.h...

Shanghai has a maglev shuttle between Longyang Road and the airport, the 30km trip takes ~8mn. Going by car or on line 2 takes ~45mn.

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

#205

Post by bergie »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #166
holografix wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> All the “gets longer” reasons you state here are solved by the “add more staff” and “use more exits” options. No. Longer immigration queues could be solved by the government adding more staff, but they cannot be solved by the airline adding more staff, and the airline is the one buying or otherwise choosing to use the plane.

Automation is the other solution. For example in Helsinki-Vantaa, there are far more automated passport check gates than there are traditional immigration desks: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/3176184017

Even at SFO I've gotten to fill the immigration questionnaire a few times with a self-service machine, greatly reducing the time spent on the process.

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

#206

Post by ubernostrum »

raz32dust wrote: post #49
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,…

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.

Isn't A350 the competitor to Dreamliner?

No. The A350 and 787 both use composite materials, and that's the end of the similarities; they're planes of different size classes, designed for different market niches.

The A350 is a competitor for the 777; both planes are designed for high-demand long-haul routes.

Airbus currently does not have a competitor for the 787, which is designed for medium-demand long- to ultra-long-haul routes.

Or in other words: an A350 or 777 is what you fly between two major top-tier cities with lots of passenger demand. Think of routes like Hong Kong to San Francisco (which is routinely flown by... A350s and 777s). A 787 is what you fly between places that are far apart, but don't have quite so much demand.

This is important because the 787 has opened up the possibility of flying routes airlines wouldn't have considered before, while the A350 just plops into existing routes easily. The 787 was basically single-handedly responsible for the return of trans-Pacific flights to San Jose, for example, and Qantas is about to launch nonstop(!) service from Perth to London on a 787.

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

#207

Post by ubernostrum »

erispoe wrote: post #184
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 A380 doesn't make sense for cargo. Too much volume for the weight it can lift. At the average plane cargo density, an A380 cargo would be at weight capacity way before it gets to volume capacity.[1] The A380 cannot lift much more than a B747. But it has more volume, which comes in handy for passengers, not for cargo. [1]: https://www.flexport.com/blog/airbus-a380-no-cargo-equivalen... edit: 747 n° mistake

The A380's useful payload is actually less then a 747 freighter. The added weight of the aircraft itself, plus the extra fuel necessary to get and keep it airborne, eats up all the extra takeoff weight capacity and then some.

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

#208

Post by ubernostrum »

dx034 wrote: post #196
tuna-piano wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The A380's maximum takeoff weight is 575,000kg, compared to 447,700kg for a 747-8 freighter. However, the A380 -- sitting empty on the ground -- weighs 80,000kg more to begin with, and also requires more fuel (because of its greater mass).

The result is that the useful payload of an A380 is lower than a 747-8F (about 84,000kg versus 132,000kg).

And that's without getting into the other issues, like the A380's structural middle-deck (which can't be removed to turn the interior into a giant cargo hold) or inability to have its nose turned into a large cargo door like a 747 (the A380's flight deck is too low to the ground, in order to maintain training compatibility with the A330 and A340).

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

#209

Post by eloisant »

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,…

It might be true for US domestic flights, but for international flights you'll always have many people flying from one population hub to an other.

Think Paris-Tokyo, London-New York, etc. You'll never have a direct flight from Edinburg to Osaka anyway.

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

#210

Post by thriftwy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #174
thriftwy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should definitely pressure the airport (to pressure the government) to create a few of those precious New Jobs and add some more people to immigration. It's just ridiculous in many airports, particularly in Europe. And it's been done, it's not like it's some pipe dream.

"Let's do the same amount of work with more people" opens the government up to a certain amount of criticism.

Do I really have to explain to them how to do their job?
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