Originally Posted by
James7
When times are tough the first item to go is the shiny new car sitting in the garage. Virgin should dump all those expensive new aircraft, they are all leased at around $1m/month, the 747 is a fraction of that. Fuel is cheap. ETOPS maintenance is very expensive
It is well rumoured that governments are at least considering, if not demanding, that company loans and/or bail out are conditional on a reduced carbon footprint in the future. whilst the older gas-guzzlers may be cheaper to own, they may not satisfy the requirements for environmental consideration. I fear we may be seeing a quicker twilight for the B747 (and possibly A380) as passenger aircraft.