Is there a market for the 380?

[Ace Rimmer]

Ah well now we get to the old Airbus vs Boeing debate that goes on and on and on...

Here's the deal children Airbus gets some very sweet financing deals and so does Boeing (incidentally I reckon Boeing's military business is in quite a different league to Airbus but there you go)
But let's not forget these deals are not just limited to aerospace (any UK taxpayers remember how much we had to anti up to Mr De Lorean thanks to the pols falling for the we'll build the factory here and ship em back spiel) The concept has been repeated time and time again (ever wondered why Nissan pick one spot over another to build their cars?).

The question is (or was) Is there a market for the A380?

If we consider the last time a really big aircraft was introduced - in.... ah yes 1969 because what else is there to use as a comparison? We see that over the life of the programme (well from 69 to now) they have been sold at a rate of about one every 9 days-ish. Meanwhile, since Airboos has been actively taking orders for the 380 they averaged about one every 8 days or so.

There is nothing seriously scientific about this it's rule of thumb SWAG I've just taken some Airboos and Boeing sales/delivery data and naged it about.
Obviously there have been a number of spikes (747 in 68-71 and again in the late 80s - and the 380 at the time of launch) but the interesting part is the A380 market appears (for now) to be not that wildly different from the 747s.

Incidentally in 1967 Boeing reckoned that it would take till about 1978 to recover the cost od developing the 747, but largley dur to the early 70s oil crisis hyper inflation etc it took till around 1986 - oh and by the way...Joe Sutter told me that.

Another digression when I was looking at the 747 data I discovered the disturbing fact that the pax 744 backlog is down to 13 (plus another 23 frieghters) bet that making more than a few people in Seattle go eeek! But it also implies that everyone who is going to want one has got one.

OK back to the usual your subsidy is bigger than mine slanging....