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Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

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Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#181

Post by throwaway2037 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #25
diebeforei485 wrote: post #4

It's a magnificent plane. It's very unfortunate that they launched the "shortened" version. The design and engineering was done for longer fuselage, so it actually has extra structure (and extra weight!) and larger wings than necessary. And it launched just before engines got a lot more efficient. The upside for passengers is that it's still the smoothest flying experience, even in turbulence. Boeing's 747 was incred…

The A380 is pretty smooth, but I found that the way it cruises is not great for me. It tends to surge and glide in a way that prevents me from actually falling asleep, more so than on other smaller planes like a 787. While the 787 might not be as silky smooth taking off and landing, I prefer it for the long term comfort that matters for most of the flight.

As I understand, the single greatest comfort improvement on the 787 is higher pressurisation: 6,000ft vs 7-8,000ft. The lower pressurisation on older planes is rough after you have experienced the 787. I felt much fresher after a long 787 flight compared to older planes.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#182

Post by hinata08 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #75
hinata08 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder about statistics for hub vs pairs Airlines line Turkish seem to do well, with their shinny new super hub in Istanbul. There can only be so much pair to pair flight, so we will always have some hub airlines. I took Nice to Manila last year. Friends of mines flew from random town in France to Abu Dhabi, through Istanbul. On my flight to Istanbul, I talked to passengers going to a random town in Egypt for divin…

It’s not just about hubs but about frequency as well. If given the choice flyers often prefer the airline flying 3 or 4 737s at varying times of day over the one big airplane.

which flyers ? I'm not sure they spread evenly

tourists all want the earliest and last flights to arrive early and leave late, and not waste a day of vacation

ppl who go on a weekend want the last trip on sunday that arrives not so late so that they can sleep, or the earliest trip on monday

And when you're going on a journey in the middle of the day, you're sometimes feeling alone in there.

Beyond offering more trips, there will still be that slots issues where you have to propose capacity at popular schedules.

You would see the same fare on all the flights, if capacity wasn't an issue for airlines.

So it's not an open and shut debate. Both types of planes should still exist.

Also, IMO, "Increasing the frequency" "at varying times of the day" with 737s only is another sign of the airline industry not really caring about what users want, because of the economics. Most travellers really want that Friday evening flight.

It's the same as with the luggages that are a premium and a nightmare to checkin with most airlines.

But it's unfortunately the system we want. We choosed to have profitable businesses, instead of costly public services like trains in Europe.

They have unlimited capacity anytime of the day, lose money, but are convenient. That should be a model again for airlines.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#183

Post by akhayam »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #175
akhayam wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so lucky! I just searched an aviation site and seems like the SFO DXB is back on A380 as well…. Yaaay! From that page: “ In 2023, the Emirates A380 is at this point scheduled to operate flights to 44 destinations in almost 30 countries. While a handful of the routes are seasonal, the vast majority are year-round. The countries with the most Emirates A380 routes in 2023 include the United States (5 destination…

I wouldn't say I like flying but if I have to fly then they are the best way to do it. Amazing machines!

+inf to that. Hate flying too, but if you gotta do it and you gotta do economy then no better machine on the planet.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#184

Post by tallanvor »

reisse wrote: post #84
908B64B197 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original 737s by Boeing were all-American masterpieces that had pretty great safety records considering the sheer number of miles flown and delivered airframes. The 737-MAX, courtesy of Post McDonnel Douglas-Boeing merger [0], with code written by offshored 9$/h Indian coders was a complete disaster. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...

Oh dear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues And speaking of safety records, A32* is better than B737* by any metric.

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the record of a plane family that's 20 years younger than the 737. The first 737 entered service in 1968 vs 1988 for the A320, and during those 20 years, airplane safety improved significantly. Airbus benefited a lot from Boeing's learnings over that time.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#185

Post by sofixa »

tiahura wrote: post #123
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is a bad take. MCAS was a fine system, the different aero charicteristics were fine. The only problem is that Boeing cheaped out and made MCAS depend on a single sensor for critical decision making. If they just had 3 sensors like any other saftey critical system none of these problems would have happened.

This. How many 10’s of thousands of flight hours were logged on the Max and no pilot even noticed MCAS.

They did, before the two crashes there were other incidents (e.g. a Lion Air flight just the days prior to the one that crashed where a third pilot was in the cabin by accident and his quick thinking saved the plane: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/lion-air-boeing-737-saved-by... )

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#186

Post by midoridensha »

rippercushions wrote: post #112
wahern wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's obviously a matter of diminishing returns and opportunity cost. But the re-engine for the A380 was basically a rote, low-risk, B-team exercise for Rolls Royce. All they had to do was tweak their existing generation stuff. The program was already well underway, and they still dropped it; they all but explicitly said the reason was, "meh, we lost interest". Something seems to have changed. Putting my cynical…

Boeing, Airbus, and Rolls-Royce are going to be in for a rude awakening if/when the Chinese aircraft industry ever gets their shit together, and/or if batteries ever become light/dense enough to support electric passenger flight. That said, watching the Comac C919 shitshow (14 years and still not in revenue service, and this is for a 737/A320 clone), I'm not holding my breath. The twin-aisle C929 is still a decade aw…

It's too bad Mitsubishi has basically given up too. It'd be nice to see more competition to Boeing/Airbus, especially after the 737MAX debacle. I'd have a lot more trust in a Japanese-built aircraft than a new Boeing, and I'm sure many others would too.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#187

Post by midoridensha »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #103
SgtBastard wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAP, but a lot of the root cause analysis around the 737 max crashes was that they were sufficiently different and so should have required re-certification of pilots before being allowed to fly them. Due to the costs involved, Boeing made the ultimately fatal mistake of minimising these changes to airlines so that pilots didnt know what they were flying (insofar as some of the subsystems).

IMO this is a bad take. MCAS was a fine system, the different aero charicteristics were fine. The only problem is that Boeing cheaped out and made MCAS depend on a single sensor for critical decision making. If they just had 3 sensors like any other saftey critical system none of these problems would have happened.

No, it would have been fine if 1) they had 3 sensors and 2) the system was in the flight manual and the pilots were trained on the system. If this means needing a new type certification, then so be it.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#188

Post by progman32 »

WalterBright wrote: post #172
jamiek88 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the fuel is grown and used instead of refined fuel from ancient oil. Carbon neutral. Standard fuel: I dig up one carbon. I burn this carbon. One carbon is now in atmosphere. Biofuel: I grow one carbon. one carbon is now taken from the atmosphere. We are at minus one carbon. I burn this carbon. We are back to net zero carbon taken or added.

Every reply to me makes the same mistake. The fix: Grow a tree. Burn a tree you dug up. Net zero carbon.

Until that tree that was just planted dies and decays back into co2. I understand that there's ways to prevent this from happening for a while, but I'm not convinced that the economics of that work well enough to offset the high quantity demand of aviation fuel. We already grow lots of trees to use in houses etc. In any case, your comments helped me understand the greater picture. I still think biofuels are a good idea for the near future. They may be an economic hack, but I think they'll work. We likely disagree on this.

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#189

Post by cm2187 »

JCharante wrote: post #162

> A380s are not very fuel efficient. I won't stand for A380 slander. They are very fuel efficient per passenger provided that you fill up the plane. Unfortunately many airlines had issues filling up the entire plane with passengers.

That’s what I thought but if you look at the long haul flight table [1] and sort by fuel per seat, the A380 is near the bottom of the list, along the B747 and A340, ie all the models with 4 engines.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Long-...

Re: Qantas is bringing back Airbus A380s from the California desert

#190

Post by actionfromafar »

btilly wrote: post #148
wahern wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's obviously a matter of diminishing returns and opportunity cost. But the re-engine for the A380 was basically a rote, low-risk, B-team exercise for Rolls Royce. All they had to do was tweak their existing generation stuff. The program was already well underway, and they still dropped it; they all but explicitly said the reason was, "meh, we lost interest". Something seems to have changed. Putting my cynical…

Starship launches tomorrow. There is a non-trivial chance that point to point suborbital flights totally disrupt the airline industry. Hong Kong to Los Angeles in 30 minutes for the price of a first class ticket is pretty hard to argue with.

It might but it would still take a long time. Industry moves slowly.
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