Originally Posted by
Veruka Salt
AerialPerspective,
With respect; are you willing to back up your statement "I'm yet to see an Airbus product of ANY model that has flown anywhere near 20 years, bar maybe a few older A320s"?
We (and our subsidiary) operate quite a few A330s over 20 years old - including the first 2 built. Until recently, we also operated even older A340s. IIRC, your first A330 (-EBA) was delivered in Jan 2003. Almost 16 years ago.
We also operate 748s (freighters) - their economics aren't particularly great, although they do make a great freighter - hence why so few -8is have been ordered, and certainly none by us. They too have had their share of technical issues, particularly around their GENX engines. We previously operated a large fleet of -400s (and 200 & 300 series Classics before that).
I've flown 2 x Boeing widebody types, and now 4 x widebody Airbus ones. Both manufacturers make great machines, although as someone recently remarked to me: "With the A350, Airbus has finally made a Boeing, whilst with the 787, Boeing has finally made an Airbus). Says it all.
VS.
OK, I was citing anecdotal evidence but looking at the production list, there are maybe a dozen or so A330s that are over 20 years old, most of the production list however that dates back that far have been stored or scrapped. This is pretty much in line with the experience of someone like VA who's first two (XFA and XFB) were 13-14 years old and despatch reliability was woeful. Going back 15-20 years, this is no surprise considering the experience of QF with a mix of A300B4s and B767-200/300s of similar vintage, the Airbus product was nothing short of junk in terms of despatch reliability compared to the Boeings. I am told that QF were more or less gifted the A330-200s as others have alluded to here and the bean counters then decided to buy -300s as well, but there were issues with configurations because of floor strength, etc.
Going back to Ansett, the Boeing 737 fleet was demonstrably more reliable than the A320s - numerous times A320s were delayed for no reason other than computer/software problems, which often righted themselves spontaneously. I think when you consider there are still B747-SPs, B747-200s/-300s still flying that date back more than 30 years and even 707s still flying it remains to be seen whether Airbus will ever produce a product with such longevity. Anecdotally, engineers and crew I've spoken to have said things such as "they're not bad aircraft efficiency-wise but they're simply not built to last". I don't think you can make a judgement about the 787 at this early stage.
As for the 747-8I, my understanding is that it is more efficient than the A380 by a reasonable margin and as another poster alluded to, probably the small numbers are due to it coming to the market late and the general trend away from 4 engine aircraft recently.
As for engine problems, while Boeing chose the engine/airframe combination I suppose they can bear some blame for introductory problems but the engine isn't built by Boeing, you could say the same thing about the Rolls-Royce engines on the A380 - just ask Qantas (and how much support they got from RR at the time).
BTW - carbon fibre composite is not plastic.