Originally Posted by vapilot2004
Fuel costs per seat for the new big bird is expected to be less than the superjumbo A380 in typical 3 class layouts ....
This was Boeing’s statement. Why do I not find it so credible? Two reasons.
One, the 747-800 is a significant update to the –400, in particular featuring new wings and electronics. It nevertheless is an update of a 1960s design. It is also smaller than the A380. Other things (technology and so on) being equal, a larger aircraft is more fuel-efficient than a smaller one. So, we are asked to believe that a smaller aircraft updated from a near-40 year old design is more efficient than a larger all-new vehicle?
Two, the statement itself: Boeing could have manipulated the definition of a ‘typical three class configuration’ to get the answer they wanted. An extreme way to do this is by having the same number of economy class seats in both ‘aircraft’ and increasing only the number of first-class seats in the A380. If Boeing were really on to something, they would have made a more direct comparison.
This is not to say that the pax 747-800 does not have its uses. I would think that a buyer would have to have two reasons for preferring it to the A380:
1. They have an otherwise all-Boeing long-haul fleet
2. The number of aircraft larger than a 777 that they need is not sufficiently large to counteract the additional complication of running a mixed fleet (once differential initial costs and fuel consumption have been taken into account).
The first statement is true of BA but the second is probably not (unless the price differential was very large indeed). Both statements are probably true of a number of US and Japanese airlines.