Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 223 posts

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#81

Post by FabHK »

blackrock wrote: post #74
vl wrote: post #2

This is really sad. I love both 747 and A380. To me it’s still more comfortable to be in the large plane for a long flight. 4 engines are better than 2.

The fallacy of the A380 was the hub and spoke model. Airbus thought people wanted to fly from a small airport to a central airport, to transfer to a A380, then fly to the other side of the world, then transfer to a smaller plane to get to their final airport. Thus, your trip ended up becoming 3 possible transfers! This is insane that I can’t imagine why the designers didn’t think this through. And airports had to upg…

When many airports are restricted by the number or airplane movements (takeoffs and landings), then transporting more passengers requires bigger planes. It was not a stupid plan.

It works well for Emirates, Etihad, Turkish etc. - they fly from everywhere to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul resp., and depending on the traffic in big or small planes. So you basically get anywhere with 2 hops.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#82

Post by FabHK »

ptmcc wrote: post #78
mantap wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't weep too many tears for the 747 but the A380 is seriously pleasant to fly on. It will be sad if it doesn't come back post COVID-19.

It didn't make economic sense for most airlines pre-COVID, and I doubt that'll change post-COVID. It was already in rapid decline.

But it was a great plane to fly on for pax.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#83

Post by nelaboras »

x43b wrote: post #36

>>The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to find buyers for the last jumbos built. This is imply not true. The last 747s built are freighters. Freight demand is at an all time high due to COVID and constraints on supply chians. Even passenger vehicles are being called into freight service (which is far less efficient yet still economical).

I'd love to see some numbers on this. As far as I understand they are used for freight because it's better than to let them sit empty (and pilots and ground staff have to be paid too), but it still is not profitable.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#85

Post by WJW »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #68
WJW wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The designers elevated the driver cabin so that it would be possible for passengers to walk underneath it when they coupled multiple trains together into a longer one. Sadly, it turned out the doors for the interlocking mechanism were very error prone so in the end they just welded them shut and you have to go around outside (at a station) if you want to move between trains sets.

Weird, intuitively seems like a less fragile approach than a giant diaphragm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC3

There was also a telescoping gantry-like contraption that went across. I can see how that is quite fragile mechanically in a moving vehicle with vibrations and everything.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#86

Post by ksk »

x43b wrote: post #36

>>The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to find buyers for the last jumbos built. This is imply not true. The last 747s built are freighters. Freight demand is at an all time high due to COVID and constraints on supply chians. Even passenger vehicles are being called into freight service (which is far less efficient yet still economical).

Are you saying Boeing is getting new orders, when they say they're not?

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#87

Post by MintelIE »

I would have thought they'd pull the plug on these new jets they had to fake safety compliance for and keep the older, working models that people will actually fly on.

I can't imagine anybody flying on a 737 Max even if the Boeing execs over at the FAA claim it's safe again.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#88

Post by gpm »

ceejayoz wrote: post #44
manigandham wrote: post #37

> The 747 notched its last order as a passenger jet in 2017 -- for Air Force One. What's the next version going to be then?

The current set were built in the 1980s, these ones will likely have a similar lifespan, so who knows? If you had to pick a non-747 Air Force One today it'd probably be a 777 or 787, although it'd be fun to see a C-5 in AF1 colors. In 30 years the President may hop around in a custom SpaceX Starship.

> In 30 years the President may hop around in a custom SpaceX Starship.

This would be really cool, but it wouldn't work for the "last mile". It's too loud and obnoxious to land in cities.

Maybe if they could modify it to deploy Marine 1 mid-air, but to me that sounds a lot like stranding the president wherever you dropped him off and an necessarily high risk maneuver.

Maybe the president gets an ICBM-Force One in the future, but I bet they also keep an Air Force One equivalent around too.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#89

Post by gsnedders »

nelaboras wrote: post #83
x43b wrote: post #36

>>The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to find buyers for the last jumbos built. This is imply not true. The last 747s built are freighters. Freight demand is at an all time high due to COVID and constraints on supply chians. Even passenger vehicles are being called into freight service (which is far less efficient yet still economical).

I'd love to see some numbers on this. As far as I understand they are used for freight because it's better than to let them sit empty (and pilots and ground staff have to be paid too), but it still is not profitable.

A _large_ proportion of worldwide freight is ordinarily carried in the belly of passenger aircraft. When most airlines stopped flying, the price of air freight _quickly_ rose (as the capacity pretty much fell overnight to just the dedicated freighter aircraft). This meant it became profitable (i.e., above the marginal costs of the flights) to fly passenger aircraft purely for the belly-hold freight.

They certainly aren't doing this and making a loss: they're hemorrhaging enough money already that they wouldn't want to add to that, but when the marginal cost is essentially the landing fees minus the parking fees they'd otherwise be paying, plus the additional cost of paying the crew above and beyond any furlough payment, plus the cost of fuel, plus any marginal maintenance cost from the extra cycles.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#90

Post by ksk »

blackrock wrote: post #74
vl wrote: post #2

This is really sad. I love both 747 and A380. To me it’s still more comfortable to be in the large plane for a long flight. 4 engines are better than 2.

The fallacy of the A380 was the hub and spoke model. Airbus thought people wanted to fly from a small airport to a central airport, to transfer to a A380, then fly to the other side of the world, then transfer to a smaller plane to get to their final airport. Thus, your trip ended up becoming 3 possible transfers! This is insane that I can’t imagine why the designers didn’t think this through. And airports had to upg…

According to this article https://aeronauticsonline.com/the-airline-economics-of-the-b...

most airlines use a combination of both models, but the hub and spoke model is more economical for the airline (apart from providing benefits for the customer). What does your data indicate?

Post reply on HN