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

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

#101

Post by nlh »

One thing that stands out in TFA is the photo of the cabin mock-up:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ijEVXdL5LsC...

What's the biggest difference? No overhead bins! It looks positively roomy in there.

I wonder if the overhead bin model is really the best one -- it feels like a huge bottleneck. Reduces headspace, slows down load in and load out dramatically since it essentially requires that every passenger be able to military press a 20lb+ weight (or have someone else do it).

I'm not sure what a better plan would be though :) Maybe raise the cabin slightly and have the bins be built into the floors below each seat?

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

#103

Post by gsnedders »

kzrdude wrote: post #66
vladvasiliu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The A380 is as good as retired. Production was scheduled to stop in 2021 since 2019 [0]. It seems to have been advanced by the coronavirus crisis [1]. Air France has stopped flying the A380 [2]. [0] Airbus announces stopping production of A380 in 2021: https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/airbus-annonce-la... [1] Coronavirus gives the final blow to the A380 https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/le-coronavirus-donne…

Stopped flying it? That sounds dire. Smaller planes, like the smaller airbuses, serve for 25-30 years, right, so why wouldn't the A380 serve them for longer?

The economics were already marginal. You basically _have_ to fill the aircraft to justify its significantly higher operating costs over large twinjets today (and the fact that no airline has many means you lose many economies of scale). In addition, many of Air France's were some of the earliest airframes constructed, some of them non-standard compared with later aircraft.

With COVID-19 and an expecting reduction in travel lasting a number of years, all airlines are downsizing. An aircraft that's already marginal makes a lot of sense to drop, even it means letting it go while young. They're effectively getting replaced by the A350-900s Air France has on order which are _vastly_ more fuel efficient per passenger.

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

#104

Post by mlyle »

fsckboy wrote: post #99
mlyle wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the end of the 747-8F. There's 16 orders (all 747-8F) in the book, and the last one is rolling out of the factory in 2022 and the line is being decommissioned. I presume if someone really wants to rush and order a few more the run would be continued slightly, but this is unlikely...

fwiw, the article itself with the bad headline says the freighter will continue, which is why I called it a bad headline.

I can see why you read this sentence

> While Boeing’s hump-nosed freighters will live on, the fast-disappearing A380 risks going down as an epic dud.

that way, but it's referring to A380 flights largely stopping but that the 747 freighter variants will be flying for a long time. But, the article (and other sources) are clear that production of 747-- including 747-8F-- is stopping. Explicitly explained later:

> Boeing’s jumbo freighters will continue to ply the skies for decades after production stops, said Aboulafia.

..

> “At a build rate of half an airplane per month, the 747-8 program has more than two years of production ahead of it in order to fulfill our current customer commitments. We will continue to make the right decisions to keep the production line healthy and meet customer needs,” Boeing said for this story.

> The planemaker has just 15 unfilled orders for the 747 -- all freighters. A dozen of them are headed to United Parcel Service Inc., and the fate of the rest is unclear, part of a dispute with Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Group.

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

#105

Post by gsnedders »

Johnjonjoan wrote: post #46
manigandham wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't takeoff/landing cycles on the engines and airframe counteract the fuel savings? EDIT: Specifically pressurization cycles and metal fatigue, since that's how aircraft lifespan is measured.

I wonder if the limiting fact to cargo capacity is weight or volume. If it's weight then perhaps the additional freight offsets those costs rather than saving fuel.

Weight is more often than not, as far as I'm aware. This also ties into questions about refuelling: there's certainly cases where freighters have a choice of carrying more freight and requiring a refuelling stop _or_ flying non-stop. How much the time-sensitive cargo is paying decides questions like that.

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

#106

Post by gsnedders »

jlcummings wrote: post #52
Tiltowait-- wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Concorde was done in by fuel prices, and because it was a small aircraft. I visited one in a museum and it was claustrophobic. Also nobody should be sorry that elites have to sit on long overseas flights just like we do. The A380 was a boondoggle from the beginning, an attempt to outdo Boeing by having TEH BIGGEREST aircraft on the market. Having to rebuild airports to accommodate it wasn't a good idea. The 747 i…

The B52 first was first rolled out for production use on 18 March 1954. The "...long-rifle of the air age..." -- Nathan Twining. It has not been manufactured since 1962. They are still in active military service, the ones that remain, and continue to see upgrades and evolving mission scope. 100 years of service is feasible. Cost per flying hour of a modern B52: $70,000 [1] 1. https://www.airforcemag.com/article/re-en…

They also spend comparatively little time in the air. Compared with passenger aircraft where their return-on-investment strongly incentivises them being airborne as much as possible, military aircraft spend _a lot_ of time sitting around, either unused or in maintenance.

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

#107

Post by crimsonalucard5 »

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).

Ships and Trucks will be handling most of this stuff. Far more economical.

Demand will be met by building the most economical transport system, the time advantage offered by planes is not a factor as that is handled by preloading products into distribution centers.

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

#108

Post by verhey »

anticensor wrote: post #8

The last day of 737 will come sometime soon too.

Why do you think this? The 737 is the most popular airplane of all time, and airline orders are trending towards smaller planes. Airbus can't make enough A320NEOs to capitalize on the slowing orders from the MAX situation, and the MAX is still a very competitive product.

Aviation regulations are often written in blood, and while the MAX is obviously not in a great place, it's not necessarily doomed forever. Nobody thinks twice about the batteries on a 787 anymore, or the pylon assemblies on the DC10.

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

#109

Post by gsnedders »

Scramblejams wrote: post #41
Tiltowait-- wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Concorde was done in by fuel prices, and because it was a small aircraft. I visited one in a museum and it was claustrophobic. Also nobody should be sorry that elites have to sit on long overseas flights just like we do. The A380 was a boondoggle from the beginning, an attempt to outdo Boeing by having TEH BIGGEREST aircraft on the market. Having to rebuild airports to accommodate it wasn't a good idea. The 747 i…

When I worked in aerospace I was told by a Boeing old-timer that he was sure Boeing only made the 747-700X proposal last as long as it did in order to force Airbus into making the A380 mistake, and that none of the Boeing insiders thought a plane that big would ever make real sense to spend money developing. Naturally I have no way to verify this, but it's a fun corporate strategy conspiracy theory.

I don't think there's any question that it was a response to the A380, and it's quite plausible they wouldn't have developed it without the A380. That said, compared with the A380 development the 747-8 will have been cheap to develop, and had an impact on the market as a whole even if it scarcely made much money.

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

#110

Post by rlpb »

fsckboy wrote: post #95
bobthepanda wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The A380 also had other issues, in that a freighter version was never developed, and also the dead weight of the plane was a lot heavier than the 747.

[I already answered you once but I thought of another way to think about it that is substantially different than my other comment so thought I'd write another one.] The freight economics issue between the 747F and the A380F is related to the complex soup of fixed costs and variable costs that go into the carrier's choice of platform; in addition to the fuel, the carrier has to amortize the purchase price, and the A38…

> Because the 747 is so old, most of the development costs are long since amortized. This gives Boeing more pricing flexibility if the two companies are competing head to head. The A380 otoh needed to earn back lot of money to get back to breakeven for Airbus, so Airbus did not have the same pricing flexibility as Boeing.

How does that work, given that development costs are a sunk cost[1]? The accountants shouldn't care. If it's necessary to compete, the development costs should no longer matter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

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