Here's some insight: The recent deregulation worldwide has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and even B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all of the U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) are either phasing out or parked all of th…
Can't you just increase the required passenger-mile per gram of CO2 to fix the pollution?
So sad. The A380 is my absolutely favourite plane and I usually go out of my way to fly it. It's so smooth and relaxing to be on.
If you get a chance, try the new(ish) A350. The 787 is quieter than the A380 from the outside (fewer engines, less thrust), but a little louder on the inside (thinner fuselage, engines closer to fuselage). The A350 is the best of both worlds and is on par (or slightly quieter) than the A380 on the inside. For the best experience, try the A350 on Singapore or Qatar in business class.
Waiting for an excuse to fly. The only airline that I might fly it on at the moment is Finnair and it flies it on the wrong routes.
tl;dr The plane is too big (600 seats) and airlines are concerned that it is/would be too hard to fill all the seats. I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something :/
I think it's still interesting, because (20 years ago) Airbus and Boeing made two very different bets on what air travel would look like in the future. Boeing thought it would be mostly P2P and built the 787; Airbus thought it would be hub-and-spoke and so built the A380. It's going to take a decade or more for this to play out, but this might be the first sign that Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong.
Isn't it likely to be some of both?
Dubai and Istanbul airports weren't in the top 30 by traffic until 2007, and they're now at 3rd and 11th biggest in the world. Those places are well-located for transfers for people travelling between Europe and Asia.
tl;dr The plane is too big (600 seats) and airlines are concerned that it is/would be too hard to fill all the seats. I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something :/
I think it's still interesting, because (20 years ago) Airbus and Boeing made two very different bets on what air travel would look like in the future. Boeing thought it would be mostly P2P and built the 787; Airbus thought it would be hub-and-spoke and so built the A380. It's going to take a decade or more for this to play out, but this might be the first sign that Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong.
I think it still depends, for the flights I have done most often most recently the hub and spoke model is still very efficient. For Europe to Australia you pretty much have to, it's an 8 and 13 hour flight combination, either going through the Middle East (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) or Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, etc). For these longer flights between big cities, being able to pack more passengers in is still desirable.
The number of orders for A380 is still increasing in 2016, so there is a lot of speculations for just one airline company with oldest versions of the plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...
I don't know what table you're looking at, but there have been no new orders for A380s this year, and last year only two planes were ordered.
The number of orders for A380 is still increasing in 2016, so there is a lot of speculations for just one airline company with oldest versions of the plane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...
So sad. The A380 is my absolutely favourite plane and I usually go out of my way to fly it. It's so smooth and relaxing to be on.
Smoother/quieter than the 787? I haven't been on either but thought that the bleedless engines and everything-electrical would make for a quieter ride.
I do not remember the 787 as a particularly quiet plane inside but i only flew it once. It's still hard to encounter from europe.
Smoother/quieter than the 787? I haven't been on either but thought that the bleedless engines and everything-electrical would make for a quieter ride.
Yes, I flew 787 on BA, the experience was similar to 777. But A380 because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing.
> because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you don't feel a thing
Selection bias? Try—
"Because the A380 is the top level equipment operated by the carriers, pay scale for pilots is greatest. Ergo, they are flown by the most senior crew; since practice correlates strongly with proficiency these pilots have a higher rate of grease jobs." (1)
(1) Grease job = industry lingo for a buttery smooth touchdown, aka, "painted it on." :-D