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Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

reuters.com

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Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#181

Post by ryguytilidie »

waqf wrote: post #153
sjm-lbm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. just to piggy back on this and add a "why": the smaller long range planes are allowing airlines to connect smaller cities with direct flights while still making money. This is easier for customers, and is insanely popular. An example here is British Airways' service from New Orleans to London. Obviously, some amount of people have always wanted to get from New Orleans to London, but previously they've been flying…

But New Orleans/London isn't two smaller cities, it's one smaller city and one major intercontinental hub. Doesn't expecting to have a nonstop flight from London to every city in the world put unsustainable pressure on landing slots in London?

I think routes like San Jose-Manchester is a better example of why A350s and 787s are great. You're also seeing a lot of 787 flights out of Oakland instead of all bay area international travel being from SF.

When I was a kid and lived in Santa Cruz, we would always have to drive to SFO for international flights because SJC's runway was too short for some of the bigger jumbos. Now with 350s and 787s, its not an issue.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#182

Post by markonen »

junkscience2017 wrote: post #106
mpweiher wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has been obscenely profitable over its lifetime Exactly. And these obscene profits in a line where it had no competition were a problem for Airbus. A problem that has now disappeared. > The A380 first flew in 2005 [2]. It has been a commercial disaster. (a) It helped kill the "obscenely profitable" 747. (b) It was a hedge in case airlines were going to stick with the hub-and-spoke model (c) Slot constraints may…

fuel costs killed the 747, not the A380 we know this is true because no one is replacing retired 747s with A380s, they are replacing them with smaller, more fuel efficient planes

Plenty of airlines have replaced 747s with A380s. British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France and Qantas immediately come to mind.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#183

Post by ptero »

code4tee wrote: post #43
ptero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling to catch up with Boeing in both sales and design I agree with your first paragraph, but not at all sure about this. Current air transportation is very stratified, but some of its numerous rules could get a major rework in the next N years (N >= 10). Current setup has mid-size sweetspot when optimized on existing rule…

It’s actually the airlines dragging their feet on a lot of this, not “30 year old ATC.” Many airlines don’t upgrade their planes to have the latest equipment. Flew in a small personal plane with a friend that’s a pilot and he was explaining how in several areas his small plane has more advanced avionics than commercial airliners. For example, his plane is certified to fly the latest 3D GPS based landing approaches wh…

> It’s actually the airlines dragging their feet on a lot of this, not “30 year old ATC.” Many airlines don’t upgrade their planes to have the latest equipment.

Yes, and I believe they do not upgrade because it makes no business sense for them. Regulators say, for example, "install ADS-B so you are compliant with latest standards" which at the moment has no tangible benefits for the airline. If, by installing it airline would get useful additional capabilities, such as being able to fly direct from point A to point B or allow for lower separation I suspect they would upgrade quickly.

The above is not (really) bashing ATC -- there is a very low tolerance for mid-air collisions, so regulatory change is very, very slow.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#185

Post by majormajor »

louithethrid wrote: post #93
valuearb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lie. Bombardiers planes don’t compete with any Boeing planes. Yet still Boeing flexed their lobbyists.

Lobbyism is what saved the american car industry.

The American car industry is safe in the US market as long as nobody outside the US figures out how to compete with the F150. Even if it had to eventually ditch everything but the trucks, the cash cow shows no signs of dying anytime soon. Make them aluminum, carbon fiber, electric, turbo, whatever - it's the form factor that sells.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#186

Post by chiph »

samfisher83 wrote: post #175
myrandomcomment wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for the tinting is really simple - weight. You have to be able to shade the windows and doing this way is less weight then have pull down screens. Everything in aircraft design here comes down to weight reduction.

Lets say there are 52 windows and each shade weight 2 pounds which I don't think they do. That is 104 pounds on a 380,000lb aircraft. That is .02% of the weight of the aircraft.

There's also the cleaning and maintenance aspects. I would guess the pull-down shades broke/tore more often than the dimming technology fails (repairing either would require pulling the seat row and wall panel to get access, so more reliable == win)

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#187

Post by rconti »

bobity wrote: post #86

Lots of yanks commenting who have never been in an A380, as it's only used in euro, Mid East and Asian airlines. The A380 is so much more comfortable than any 747 I've been on. If you do long haul on an A380 in any class you won't go back...

I've flown the A380 a bunch of times, always SFO-FRA, upper deck economy on Lufthansa.

The best part of the experience is the relative calm of the small economy class on the upper deck. To be honest, other than that, I don't particularly prefer it over anything else. If I was pressed I guess I'd say I prefer the 787. Mostly I prefer whatever gets me to my destination without a layover (which, thankfully, is usually available from SFO).

The worst part is the crush of people trying to board the damn plane, spilling out all over the entire terminal.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#188

Post by kylehotchkiss »

chimeracoder wrote: post #61
namdnay wrote: post #2

I fly Emirates A380 from time to time, I have to say the business class is better than the first class of most carriers. Very quiet, masses of space, and the bar is not bad at all when you want to stretch your legs. And when you get bumped up to first... having a shower on a flight is very nice :) The only problem is the godawful stopover in Dubai - If there is one advantage that the non-gulf carriers have, it's that…

> The only problem is the godawful stopover in Dubai - If there is one advantage that the non-gulf carriers have, it's that they can offer short+long haul to get from Europe to Asia, as opposed to medium+medium/long. Emirates does offer at least one of these flights (NYC to Milan). Though I'm not sure if it's an A380 - I suspect it's not. I wish I had the spare cash to fly their business class on the A380 before it g…

They'll "offer" it to coach passengers for $1000 during check in sometimes. It's worth the splurge just once.

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#189

Post by waqf »

kbenson wrote: post #166
waqf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But New Orleans/London isn't two smaller cities, it's one smaller city and one major intercontinental hub. Doesn't expecting to have a nonstop flight from London to every city in the world put unsustainable pressure on landing slots in London?

Does the comparison not work if the smaller city is in Europe and he major hub is one of the ones in the US? Or even two US cities? I think perhaps using London as an example is overshadowing the point being made. If you aren't aggregating passengers at hubs which you then use larger planes for the common leg of the journey, you don't need as many larger planes.

Direct flights to more destinations from any hub still means a superlinear increase in the number of slot pairs required. Are you suggesting that that wouldn't also be problematic at hubs in North America?

Re: Airbus ready to axe A380 if fails to win Emirates deal

#190

Post by kylehotchkiss »

Robotbeat wrote: post #85

777x is probably the future of this segment. Larger planes simply cannot scale because they already have to have short wings to fit in airports. Folding wings (like the 777x) can address this. Longer, higher aspect ratio wings are one powerful way to continue the march to higher efficiency. Eventually, I think this will allow electrification of most air travel. And I do think that supersonic air travel will make a st…

Is the 777x quieter than the current 777s? Current 777s are soooo loud. Trying to sleep when they need to climb a thousand feet in the middle of a flight is a losing battle, especially on 10+ hour flights.
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