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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

#61

Post by chimeracoder »

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 gets discontinued!

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

#62

Post by froindt »

pmcollins wrote: post #13
code4tee wrote: post #6

Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn’t been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built). The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling…

Boeing's market analysis said that the market could barely support one super-jumbo, let alone two, so they opted for the much cheaper 747 upgrade and we got the 747-8 (which is also headed for extinction). I heard an analyst say that you have to carry a lot of fuel to carry a lot of fuel. The optimal size from an efficiency perspective is the much smaller 737 -- the more you deviate from that, the larger the efficien…

>I heard an analyst say that you have to carry a lot of fuel to carry a lot of fuel.

Yep! Aerospace has been on the leading edge of manufacturing methods for many years because of it. Even worse is having a heavy airplane at the start of the flight (the weight is always there).

In school we were talking about manufacturing aerospace parts, and the joke is that you always take a nice chunk of aluminum and machine away 85% of the volume.

GE has been doing lots of work with metal additive manufacturing, in some cases increasing performance while also decreasing cost. It allows geometries which are otherwise impossible with traditional manufacturing methods.

Metal AM is also hella expensive. You won't see tons of metal AM parts on consumer cars anytime soon, as the metal powders and machines are expensive, and production rates are often slow in comparison to traditional manufacturing methods.

For reference, my professor passed around a part which weighed around 2 pounds and fit in your hand. The all-in cost to get that printed in steel was around $5,000, and around $8,000 for titanium.

https://www.ge.com/reports/epiphany-disruption-ge-additive-c...

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

#63

Post by [deleted] »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #60
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead Boeing has built and sold over 1,500 747s [1]. It first flew in 1969 and is now being end of lifed. It has been obscenely profitable over its lifetime. The A380 first flew in 2005 [2]. It has been a commercial disaster. The 747 was a great plane for 1969. Airbus built the finest horse-drawn carriage just as the Model T came out. > constrained slots at major air…

I would be interested on how your comment fits your quote.

[deleted]

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

#64

Post by funnelsgun »

mpweiher wrote: post #33

I think coverage of the A380 often misses the point that at the time, Boeing's 747 simply had no competition, whereas all of Airbus's planes did. So Airbus pretty much had to create the A380 in order to protect its other lines from cross-subsidy by this unopposed cash-cow. And, also missing from almost all the coverage is the fact that this worked: if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead. Official back…

Boeing could have chosen to compete with the A380 and built their own Superjumbo, but they chose not to, instead working on the Dreamliner.

The 744, which was the last update to the 747 to see large market penetration, wasn't all that cost effective either:

> with 70 percent of its seats occupied, used more than 95 percent of the fuel needed by a fully occupied 747

Yes, the A380 is more fuel efficient, and cost per seat is much lower, but I suspect with the exception of Emirates, most airlines did not need bigger planes. Other airlines such as BA, Quantas and Singapore bought A380s to replace their oldest 744s, but still have a lot of 744s in service that won't be replaced with A380s.

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

#65

Post by dghughes »

code4tee wrote: post #6

Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn’t been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built). The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling…

Boeing plays a lot of games like getting 40% of its revenue from the US government but crying unfair when other countries get any subsidies at all. Look at the nearly 300% duty it demanded added on to the parts made by their competitor Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier.

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

#66

Post by JumpCrisscross »

code4tee wrote: post #6

Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn’t been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built). The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling…

> Emirates buying so many A380s

The governments of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have invested a fortune into their international hubs. The shift away from hub-and-spoke is a demise for them, too.

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

#67

Post by valuearb »

mpweiher wrote: post #33

I think coverage of the A380 often misses the point that at the time, Boeing's 747 simply had no competition, whereas all of Airbus's planes did. So Airbus pretty much had to create the A380 in order to protect its other lines from cross-subsidy by this unopposed cash-cow. And, also missing from almost all the coverage is the fact that this worked: if the A380 is struggling, the 747 is moribund or dead. Official back…

Boeing played it better because they did not re-invest heavily in the 747, and let it die.

It’s not a question of competition. If all of the remaining 747 orders switch to the A380, its still a failure.

And as far as airport congestion goes, building new airports is far easier than new rail lines.

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

#68

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

stergios wrote: post #20

Boeing most likely has already delivered the last passenger 747 ever to be built [1]. Cargo demand will keep the line alive, but at greatly reduced numbers, which in total have been 1536 units since it's commercial introduction in 1970 [2]. IMHO, the A380 was not created to meet market demand, but instead was conceived to meet the national interests of England and France's own military industrial complex, and in that…

Shouldn't that be France and Germany? From the top of my head the largest production facilities with most employees are in those countries.

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

#69

Post by namdnay »

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…

Apparently it is: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE206

I did not know about this flight, very interesting!

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

#70

Post by valuearb »

dghughes wrote: post #65
code4tee wrote: post #6

Boeing played the market correctly here. When everyone was oohing over the A380 Boeing said super jumbos were on their way out and focused on the 787. If it hadn’t been for Emirates buying so many A380s to begin with it would have been a flop from the start (Emirates alone operates almost half of the A380s ever built). The future in long haul is mid-size highly efficient twin engine jets and here Airbus is scrambling…

Boeing plays a lot of games like getting 40% of its revenue from the US government but crying unfair when other countries get any subsidies at all. Look at the nearly 300% duty it demanded added on to the parts made by their competitor Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier.

This is a lie. Bombardiers planes don’t compete with any Boeing planes.

Yet still Boeing flexed their lobbyists.

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