Is there a market for the 380?
 

I have no interest in starting a Boeing v Airbus war but I am interested in knowing what you all think about a current demand of any aircraft larger than a 747. Although I am not in the airline industry common sense would seem to say that the future of the airline industry is not number of souls but speed. This seems to me to be where the future lies.

Airbus is promising an awful lot to those who have current orders on the new plane. First, the double deck, which in 1968/69 Boeing already deemed unfavourable with the authorities for both emergency egress issues as well as gate docking. Second, they talk about a "waterfall", work-out gym and duty free shops. Wouldn't this be a CG and weight concern having passengers (and water) moving all over the plane? Not to mention the changes that airports would once again have to make to allow for a larger wing span than the 747 and 777.

I'm not even sure that pre-2001 this plane would have a market. My father is a 747 pilot who claims the bird is almost never full. He has hauled pax to Hong Kong from London with less than 400 pax. It would seem that after 2001 there is even less of a demand for larger. Subsonic planes look to be the way of the future and everything that Airbus is giving us is just pie in the sky. With so many of the larger airlines having problems with showing a profit and the smaller airlines doing well this would seem to confirm my doubts. What do you think?

Cheers!

We fly three times a day with B744 and B777 to LAX from Asia. We will use the A380 to increase the capacity ond not the sequence as we have our birds often fully packed and cannot sell more tickets. A fourth flight on certain days is not possible as we cannot get additional Airport slots. So we can keep the cycles by increasing the capacity. Does that makes sense to you?
Remark from my Pilot`s soul: I do not want to fly that Bird, 550 Seat and 5 min. before pushback two PAX missing in the duty free or somewhere else. Now you have to have fast baggage handlers to locate and off load the checked in baggage. Another satiesfying portion is that You will fly the same routes most of the the time as the number of destination are not very high. For us it would be 3 routes mayorly, boaring as I like the variations in my present schedule.

NG

BA is flying 3 fully booked 747s a day to LAX alone in August. Most flights will depart almost full- many overbooked. Don't even try for Bangkok and Singapore! HKG flights busy. Exactly why do you think the world will stop progressing? Don't you think people argued the same when the 747 doubled the seating capacity of long range jets in the early 70s? Do you really have the experience to judge?

Not So Fantastic,

Indeed, I don't have the experience to say. What I was asking was others that did so that I might be able to understand why it is thought to be needed. Of course I see progress; it just seems like a bad time to bring in such a large plane at this time IF it is not needed. If there are airlines selling every seat on the 747 then that was the answer I was looking for. However, what about the shops, waterfalls and gyms Airbus is proposing? I assume you are a pilot so what are your thoughts on these items?

I am looking for some enlightenment so easy on the bashing, mate.

Cheers!

The 380 represents an interesting problem. The seat mile cost is great - but only if all the seats are full. Start having empties and your per seat mile costs are now going up.
With yield management the response is sell the seats cheap - below "cost" (cost is a very elastic term). This is only a short term fix - and leads to a public expectation that if I hold out I can get it cheap. In some respects yield management has become the tail that wagged the dog.
In the US the reponse has being many airlines found it was cheaper to go to a smaller plane and "dump" the cheap seats at the back.
Interestingly the profitable airlines - jet blue - south west - dare I say Ryanair - and other LCC's have all gone the route of smaller planes - high frequency.

What happens on the long haul international market is different - but the 777 has cut into the 747 sales.

Another area often overlooked is the actual cash generated off a flight - First and Business are basically paying the way for the whole plane. Offered an option I suspect these passengers will avoid a mega bus with more chances for delays.

These two trends are obvious out of Newark - 15 years ago you got on 747 and went to London and then went to Belfast, manchester etc etc. Now you can fly direct - every night to Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Shannon - all on twin jets.

The even more interesting trend is Lufthansa is now running all business class 737-800's to dusseldorf every night - 48 seats @ $5,000 RT - not a bad deal. I believe they have expanded this service.

So depending on the trends the A-380 may become a sink - lots of churning - little profit. If it can maintain loads and the right mix it will be a cash cow. The one buyer who does not have to worry is FEDEX.

One thing I do know is you can forget the waterfalls - gyms - food courts - etc - great hype - the beancounters will jam in the seats.

That was sort of the way I was looking at things. Obviously there may be routes that could use the 380, if what B737NG and Notso Fantastic are correct but in the long run is the 380 just another Concorde when it comes to cost to fly and operate? Perhaps some of the airlines who have orders for the new airbus will have little need for the plane by 2006 if they aren't doing well in the profits?

I am not trying to speak as someone in the airline industry; I am just speaking out of what appears to be common sense.

This is rehashing a lot of old stuff that is in the archives which you could find if you took the trouble to research. The 747 was too big when it was introduced- aviation would now not be the same without it. Instead of doubling capacity, the 380 is some 50% greater than a 747. In 15 years we couldn't do without it. It's called progress. Do you think some of the best brains in the world haven't done their homework and decided what is needed and when it should be supplied? What is your solution? No 380, keep the inefficient 747s operating ad infinitum? Replace the 747 with another machine the same size? AIrbus are looking to the world 10, 20, 30 years ahead. Boeing took their eye off the ball- God knows what they were doing. They totally lost the big aeroplane market. Airbus are suppling the new large aeroplane of the future, and lovely it is. I'm a Boeing pilot, but it's feeling old.....and inefficient......and as it gets unreliable, it will pass into history.

129 orders from some of the world's leading carriers and it hasn't flown yet. If the press is to be believed, that'll be 139 soon with Etihad and Thai, so it's a fair bet that there is a market. Notso's abso-blooming-lutely right - with pairs of 744s following each other out of HKG and SIN each and every night heading for LHR from both BA and SQ or CX (that's 4 744s out of each airport) and with demand going up, of course it'll be needed. There are only so many slots at LHR, CDG, FRA et al, so the only way is increase the aircraft size. this is where fragmentation falls over. Still, I do look forward to taking a 7E7 directly from Leeds-Bradford to Indianapolis :}

The other issue is, of course, the decrease in cost per seat. If your competitors are flying 744s but you can afford to offer a ticket price 10 or 20% lower because of the seat mile costs of the A380, then who are the pax going to flock to? Especially if this involves the service levels of SQ or Emirates for example. You can stimulate demand by doing this, though the tail wagging the dog scenario is all too true these days!

I once had to visit brand A in Toulouse. Went to Paris for a little vac. first and so tried to book tickets Paris-Toulouse. easyJet was about 80 Euros return. Air France (requesting info. by phone) was about 400 Euros. I asked the young lady at Air France why this should be when I could get an easyJet ticket for 80 Euros and was met with the reply that "they don't have the quality of Air France, monsieur". Can you guess who I flew with? This will be the same sort of phenomenon that occurs after EIS of the A380! If you don't have it, you just CAN'T compete.

Double the load and half the pay for the Crews,

Sounds like a bargain to any air carrier..

panda_bear

Your EZJET choice is my point - EZJET flys a 737 of some type - you would get a lower seat mile cost (based on a full plane) using something bigger - (what was AF using on that route) so why don't they?

You do stimulate demand with lower prices - here in the US there have being numerous examples , BHM, PVD, of Southwest moving into a market, lowering prices and sending traffic way up. But they do it with small planes flying full. They run 20+ flights a day from LAX to LAS (and many other routes) - the numbers would say get a bigger plane - but old Herb's crew sticks to their knitting - and makes money.

Personally I suspect the A380 will do fine - given the accounting we will never know - but it will not have anything like the impact of the 747 on the global market. The last figures I saw claimed a 10% seat mile cost advantage - the 747 was a 50%+ advantage.
Boeing has certainly lost sight of the ball and need to play catch up.

The one thing the international carrier cannot afford is market segregation - the cash is at the front of the bus - If I was trying to market forecast that is what would worry me. The people up front value time above all else - they are not going to get more space or drink more bubbly on a 380 - and if someone says my 340-500, 777 etc will get you there with less time (due to ground time) and less mixing with the rest of us - you can bet they will take their high fares with them.

Interesting to note a new airport opened in China today. Just as planes develop to demand - so do ground facilities. When I lived in Stirling the only international flights were to Prestwick Now you can do Edinburgh or Glasgow from New York. Quite the change

Boeing has certainly lost sight of the ball and need to play catch up. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Well now, 20driver, this is where the business model of the airline comes into being. The easyJet philosophy is using a frequency driven model. Smaller aircraft are used, though they are fitted with max seating - 156 on an A319. Put that in perspective - Jetblue have 156 on their A320!

One of the brick walls that Ryanair have run into is that they use a larger unit - 189 seats. That's just dandy when the route has developed, but there's a tacit admission in parts of Ryanair that the aircraft is too big when you develop a new route - hence the levels to which the pricing goes on Ryanair in order to stimulate demand.

In easyJet, the aircraft is that bit smaller. It's ideal to open up the route. Want to increase capacity? Simple, add another frequency. It works quite well in Europe and quite well with the smaller aircraft. You can't just bang on another 744, though, in a long haul operation - there aren't many airlines (United being the exception) that have 744s just sitting around doing nothing ready to develop routes.

The fragmentation argument works to a point - it has worked on quite a few routes over the North Atlantic - but traffic levels, certainly in Europe, mean that airports are reaching breaking point. What's the solution? Well, I'm with Airbus. Hubbing is the only solution. Look at the order books for the A345 and the 777-200LR and I think you'll see that the airlines are tending to agree that point to point is not such a safe bet - and Boeing want to put another aircraft into the market place that will do the same as the -200LR (sales are, what, 5 units on the LR?). Seems a bit of a dodgy bet to me!

Another point - India. India has a relatively small "middle-class" in percentage terms. But that's still, what, 200 million people? Translate that on a global scale and you can see that the ONLY way forward is larger aircraft....

As has already been mentioned, this subject has been hammered to death on other threads.

In this case I think Notso may have his head in the sand and Panda is wearing his/her rose tinted glasses!

Boeing actually got it right. They did a study of the market and came to the conclusion that whilst a very big aircraft would be desireable for a few routes by a few operators the market would never be big enough to sustain a large enough order to break even, certainly not in competition with anyone else. This conclusion was also influenced by the fact that many Boeing customers were already showing signs of ditching their B744s and moving to a versatile range of B777. Boeing decided to approach Airbus and offer a consortium for VLA which Airbus rejected. Boeing then pulled out and left Airbus to go it alone.

139 orders before the first aircrarft flies isn't really as significant as it may seem given todays financial environment. Operators are cashing in on major discounts that are currently being offered in order to satisfy THEIR needs, they don't actually give a stuff if Airbus breaks even just so long as Airbus honour their contracts and support the aicraft they deliver. Contracts that will have been very carefully written/agreed to by the operators.

The A380 is a very, very long way from break even at the moment and the 139 orders may well represent around 60% of total demand, should this be the case then Airbus will be in a financial quagmire.

It is a very misleading argument to compare the introduction of the A380 with the B747 since the B747 was, without doubt, a quantam leap, unlike the A380 which although undeniably huge is more akin to the difference between, say, a DC8-50 series and a DC8-70 series and the DC8-70 series was an acquired taste with quite limited appeal.

Don't forget there will always be a big market for big aeroplanes. The 747s of all models cannot go on forever, and the premium operators will be looking for the replacements. Already the 747-200s are heavily retired. The 400s have been in for some 16(?) years which means the heaviest used ones are looking at retirement. The 747 retirement market alone will keep the 380 market healthy. The 747 is old now- its orders will never recover.
The Far East market will suck up all the 380s Airbus can produce. Even Emirates thinks it can use 38! When Qantas, BA, LH & AF finally order what they need, the production line will go on forever!

And that, Notso, is where we will have to beg to differ.

"There will always be a big market for big aeroplanes" - Somehow I don't think so. The B744 hit the ceiling and the follow up and demand for the B777 family, (and the A330/340 family), demonstrate this, I believe.

The operators will love the A380 for the high density routes but they simply don't need so many. Don't use ME airlines as any kind of yardstick as some have more money than most other airlines know what to do with and are driven more by kudos than economic sense, look at their history!

EK may well wipe out all the competition in the Gulf area and look to be using SQ as their business model but they have nothing like the catchement area of any of the Far East airlines. Should EK discover a surplus they will simply dump the spare airframes on the market creating yet further headaches for Airbus who will be desperately trying to sell new airframes.

There is a market for the A380 but it is much too small to make the aircraft a viable financial proposition for the makers, the history of ever expanding airframe size, in this case, would be a very unreliable yardstick for Airbus.

The B747 started life as a contender for the USA military as a cargo carrier with a passenger capability, it eventually became the lead singer in the commercial aeroplane market. The A380, with it's obvious size, bulk load and troop transport capability could well tread a similar path to the B747 but in reverse.

Ah yes the eternal question is there a market for the 380?

Boeing has always said that there is only market enough for one VLA and it wasn’t very big and that’s why they weren’t going to bother (I think it was a total market for about 100-200 over 20 years or something like that anyway)
They may be right, they may be wrong, I don’t know and it appears neither do Boeing… If you remember periodically they talk about stretching the 744 but then they shelve the program again (usually because of lack of airline interest…old dog new tricks perhaps?).

So far Airboos have flogged about 130 of the beasts which either means they will only flog few more over the next 20 or 30 years or the actual size of the market is bigger than Boeing suggest. Remember there are still some very big airline players yet to ante up for 380s doesn’t mean they are not going to.

Demand for air transport is growing…long term the trend is still up.
If you draw a graph which shows the number of people traveling by air and you start it at Orville and Wilbur and end with today give or take it comes out about 5% compound annual growth on average – funny thing short term drops like 02-03 which seem to cataclysmic at the time will be hardly a squiggle in the long term graph (as the mid 70s. early 80s and 91-93 events were) (which is probably why it is that IATA is always forecasting about 5% growth – funny that).

Therefore in about 10 years or so pax numbers will be close to double today’s and in 15 years in the neighborhood of triple. Granted much of this will come from emerging markets (India domestic and China spring to mind) but necessarily there will also be growth in mature markets – significant growth.

Problem is of course, there are only so many slots…Hub bypass is likely to remain a short haul thing – long haul is still hub stuff even if it’s hub to spoke (a’la NY to Birmingham or Toulouse or wherever).

So we’ll have slot constraints (already do at some hubs – plus look at what Minetta and Blakey want to happen at ORD). So the only way to grow ASMs in that environment is bigger aircraft. This will happen right through the spectrum – replace a 50 seat RJ with a 70, a 70 with a 100, A319 with a 321 and so on – in fact it is already beginning to happen. And where to go at the big end of the equation? Step forward Airboos and the 380.

Notso also makes the point about the age of the 74 family (the base design is getting on for 40 years old – older if you go back as far as Boeing’s C5 entry that it’s based on) so there’s the replacement market on top of the need for growth.

Will there be market for the 380?
Yep I think that’s a reasonable assumption…meets the need for more pax and no competition…Mind you there still a lot of stuff to sort out (as there was when the 747 came along) airport terminal design, the weight issues and the impact of it’s wake vortices on runway capacity all spring to mind.

I don't doubt that there is a market for the A380 from the airlines point of view, but I doubt there is from the manufacturers point of view. Even Rolls Royce went bust once.

Is there a demand for A380, errrm let me think, So you really think that Airbus would be spending billions on developing it if there wasn't. Your argument is polarised and cynical.

"Some HKG flights are not full" OK so thats one route you have used to completely shred the case for the A380 is it??? As people have already pointed out, at todays big airports slots are at a premium. If you can reduce the number of flights to a particular destination by increasing capacity then that is a good thing surely. A380 has an already healthy order book and it hasnt even flown, i noticed recently that Thia are the latest to place a large Airbus/Boeing widebody order, including A380.

The 747 got the same response when it was in its infancy, that did alright.

I am inclined to agree over the issue of the new layout of the aircraft. Yeah it looks nice to have a gym and a bar etc etc, however, seats mean profit so i wouldnt expect to see too many fitted out like that. After saying that, Virgin, the UK launch customer, is having issues with the cabin layout, and i think we can expect something pretty innovative. Should be interesting. I hardly think a few people walking around will adversely affect the cg, this already happens on 747's so come on!!!!

Also you are incorrect on your assumption on wingspan, the A380 is not stupidly large, it fits into an 80m2 box on the ground which makes it fully compliant with all major hubs. The issue of emergency egress has also been proved to work.

On your point about faster being better why did Boeing scrap their sonic cruiser idea. They were touting the speed not size issue and got egg on thier face. It would seem to me that Boeing have not responded well to the threat of A380. The project has been around for at least 10 years and Boeing already had a large aircraft they could modify more quickly than Airbus could build, flight test, certify a new one. The A380 will be a great success i am convinced.

You also mentioned something about smaller airlines doing better and that being the way forward?? BA seems to be doing pretty well to me since the change of power a few years ago, fleet rationalisation, pooling of assets, cutting costs. Horses for courses mate, small airlines were never going to buy A380. National flag carriers will see that the A380 will be a cash cow when deployed on the right routes.

Time will tell

Quite frankly, increasing speed is of little relevance in spite of some personal opinions. Do you see a new supersonic passenger aircraft out there? No, didn't think so. On the drawing board even? No again. Too expensive to produce, too thirsty, too much to maintain and thus too expensive to operate. Anyone who thought that the sonic cruiser was a real aeroplane must need a serious mental health check - what's the point gaining 20 minutes in flight time only to lose it again when in the stack or during taxi in? What's the point in having an aircraft that leaves the Asian countries to arrive in Europe (the routes where you could get a meaningful time reduction) during the curfews? Why design an aircraft to cruise at the point where drag is at its highest and so burn the most fuel possible? Insanity, all of it.

The A380 DOES have a market. It IS point to point, but the points are bigger. As populations grow, so do the cities, don't forget - so there are more of those bigger points. Of course the economists in Airbus know there's a market. Of course they've studied it. And of course, so have Boeing. And they have (at least in my opinion) come to the same conclusion as Airbus - hence the Sonic Cruiser "spoiler". Just a shame it didn't work too well, because Airbus is still selling A380s. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Airbus have succeeded in adding at least one new customer every year since the launch of the A380 - not bad considering that is usually the most dead period with orders only just picking up after entry into service. 139 orders with something like 18 months to go until EIS isn't too bad, is it? And, as yet, no orders from BA, Northwest, JAL, ANA, Air China, Air India, United (?), Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific or Cargolux who all must be prime candidates. Then there's all of the options from the existing customers that aren't included in that 139. Let's face it, Airbus stated that break even was at 250 A380s sold. That's easily achievable given this lot. There is simply no competitor and to think that fragmentation is going to replace hub services completely is madness - people are still going to have to route through hubs whether they like it or not (I reiterate my Leeds-Bradford to Indianapolis case!)

I rather think that my glasses are a bit more clear than off-pink!

I can't believe so many people can be so short sighted! They'll also be 'forgetful', claiming in 5 years they 'knew all along the 380 would be successful!'. It has even better market prospects than the 747 at the equivalent stage, which was getting then a lot of derision for being too big too soon. Eventually the long range, round the world stuff, will go over completely to this machine for its cost savings. The market will be at least 50% higher than the 747 because it will strangle any competition. With the worlds economies growing at 5%/year, 10 years down the road the only answer will be 380, with Boeings flying package tourists in 7E7s! I don't have the same level of faith in 'point to point' as some do. States & Australia maybe, but the rest of the world not yet.

PandaK
Do you REALLY think Airbus can break even on 250 airframes? If it is true then Airbus really isn't a business and just a state runs jobs excersize

If you do the math we will assume it was 10 billion dollars to develope the 380 (airbus has admitted a number much higher than that, plus the factory and everything else, but its easy numbers to crunch)

Assuming that the interest rate is zero for the money they have borrowed (which it effectively is which is GROSSLY unfair) 40 million dollars of every aircraft goes to paying back the loans. That is before you hang an engine, paint it, install the cockpit or anything else.

As Airbus is listing the aircraft for about 200 million, do you really think it only costs 160 million dollars to build? Now bear in mind those 129 sold aircraft which includes options (about the same number of airframes and customers as the concord at this state of developement I might add)

Now, imagine if Airbus was a legitamately run capitalist enterprise instead of a Euro jobs program that actually had to go out and borrow money (and can't easily divert it from other programs because of SEC laws). Think about how much interest would go into each airframe as well. About an additional 100 million dollars....




Notso,

The revolution of the 747s was not it SIZE. That was a byproduct of the true revolution of the 747 which was its range. 30 years later out of the 1200 or so 747s sold, only 300 of them were bought for their capacity (and many of these in Japan).

Just because you CAN fill an airplane during the summer doesn't mean you can do it year around. You can crush your yeilds by flying aircraft that are too large the rest of the year. The problem is that you need reliable heavy traffic all year around.

Is there a market for the A380? Yep. Is it vast. Nope....

Fragmentation is coming on longer routes too... Don't believe me? No one believed it on the shorter routes either. DC-10s were mostly for the domestic use market. they actually have lower seat mile costs than a 737 if you fill them. Yet southwest flies between dallas and Houston 39 times a day! That is somethign AA used to do with a DC-10 at one point! Southwest gets two things out of that. The ability to shift resources around and a steadyu consistant load factor. they don't have a flight that is empty. If the flight is empty the move the equptment somewhere else. The passenger gets the unbelievable convienience of going any time they want...

Southwest could fly bigger aircraft and drive their seat mile costs WAY down. They would trash their yeild and lose a lot of flexibility, and offer less convienience for their pax...


Cheers
Wino

When I did a tour of the Boeing factory about 4/5 years ago, the price they quoted was about 220 for the 777 and 200 for the 747 then. I doubt whether Airbus will admit what breakeven is for the 380. However the majors have not even started ordering yet. Good routes? Europe -Australia and Europe South Africa where one end is in summer and the other winter- so low seasons are short. Add on Europe-Far East, and you have a large market already. When they start appearing on LAX/SFO- Far East, people are not going to want to travel on an old fashioned 747! They'll sell, big time.

I think more of what is killing the 747 market accept for freighters is the 777. If there was a 777F there would be no 747F sales. Costs are much lower on the 777. Why, 2 engines instead of 4.

Mr. Boeing has been quietly working a two engine version of the something that looks a lot like a 747, but with 2 engines for a couple of years. Yes they looked at it a long time ago, but no engine existed that could satisfy engine out criteria.

Thanks to everyone for your opinions. You have all given me some information that I wasn't aware of, though I am still not entirely convinced that Boeing has dropped any balls. I think terrorism has to play some role (even if it is small and temporary). Less people in the States are flying to international destinations. As for other parts of the world...we'll have to see. Perhaps if the situation gets no better and the long queues at the security gates with 500+ passengers may have some people happier to board 744 or 777's.

I did preface my first post by saying that I am not in the airline industry so I can not be accused of saying I know for a fact the 380 is not needed. I am interested to see what will happen and although I don't doubt anyone's information I will come back to this discussion if the 380s fail to deliver what has been promised. With that said, if they do well then I can take the "I told you so" like a man.

Cheers!

I've said it before, and I will say it again. The advantage for the A380 is cost structure. The resources in aviation that are either increasingly expensive (where they are marketed) or in short supply (where they are regulated) are overwhelmingly the ones that vary with aircraft movements, not load. These are the semi-variable costs in econospeak.

You don't need more slots or more air traffic capacity to load more pax - you need them if you are going to put on another flight. Where strict noise restrictions exist, this limits the number of movements, not the load. (I wonder how long it will be before permission to move out of hours is marketised? Say you are QC8 and need to dispatch late at night from LHR. Wouldn't it be a nice little earner for the CAA if, instead of quotas, they sold the permit? So - does it cost more to pay for the go or to put up the pax for the night?) Even fuel varies less with load than with per-movement factors (specific consumption, wind, range, alternates). Can anyone really see Leeds Bradford - or Indianapolis - expanding to provide enough slots for all these 7e7s in the teeth of public nimbyism?

Clearly, what is needed is to squeeze as much payload as possible into each flight (slot, route, ton of fuel..). Point to point will remain a luxury - which is as well, because the rising cost of each movement will demand high fares. The LH 738 operation might work out, but this has a limit - namely that the travellers who can afford $5000 fares are concentrated in places near hubs!

Lots of interesting and valid points. Personally when I have been down the back of a 747 on a long flight my main gripe is with the seat pitch. If they use the extra size of the A380 to increase the seat pitch that will substantially increase the popularity of flying long haul. Then all you would need is to speed up security procedues at airports, especially in the USA. You never know flying could become fun again.

That is one thing that will absolutely never happen. That could be done just as easily with ANY aircraft, but it would cut into profits. So it will NEVER happen.

Cheers
Wino

Wino

"Do you really think airbus can break even on only 250 airframes"

No i doubt they could, but i reckon twice that number ought to do the trick. Lets face it, a new type takes a long time to "break even" however, if it smashing the competitor out of the water, then I am sure that will suffice until Airbus roll out their "n" th A380......

;)

Quote
"That is one thing that will absolutely never happen. That could be done just as easily with ANY aircraft, but it would cut into profits. So it will NEVER happen".




Errr Wino are not AA doing just exactly that ? Check out the "More Room" bit on their site ( ran a big TV ad campaign too)

Wino,

Kindly check facts before posting. List price for A380 is closer to 300 million than 200 million. May we assume that the rest of your figures are 50% out?

129 orders are FIRM orders, not orders plus options. With all of the options that figure is more like 200. So the orderbook you state isn't as small as you seem to think, either.

I'm not even going to dignify your remarks about subsidies with a response.

Have a nice day, now, y'all.

lauch customers (and they all are) paying list? Are you kidding....

Whose dignifying who with a load of crap here...


Cheers
Wino

Have to agree with Wino regarding the price paid by launch customers for the A380. I guess a discount per aircraft may average around 15%, so giving close to $250m per aircraft, which would mean around $50b for 200 aircraft right so maybe they will break-even none the less??

I also way lowballed the developement costs by a similar amount because it allowed us to work with round numbers.

Don't forget to pump those up to reality. And also don't forget to add the cost of the factory in as well.....


Cheers
Wino

There's only one of us spouting "crap" here, as you so eloquently put it, but my beef is with the argument you put forward. Let's refrain from personal insult, shall we?

I was merely pointing out that the numbers you quoted weren't accurate. So please, tell me what these airlines paid and pray do tell how much the A380 really cost? Are you SURE the factory isn't included in the 10 billion (or whatever it was)? Or do you just personally doubt it? Where do I ever state that those airlines paid list price? But a 15% discount on 300 million means more cash in the coffers than a 15% discount on 200 million doesn't it? Which allows the development costs to be recouped quicker doesn't it? So where's the "crap" in that?

Is your bone of contention the fact that jobs are being taken away from U.S. citizens? Europeans don't have a right to have jobs in the aerospace industry, then?

Why was the Indianapolis Maintenance Center for United paid for by the state of Indiana? (and now lies empty...)

Why did Washington state give Boeing enormous tax breaks?

Why is Boeing looking for subsidy from the Japanese for the 7E7?

Why does the USAF attempt to order 100 767 tankers at above any price relative to the product at JUST the moment that Boeing is looking to launch the 7E7?

How level is the playing field now?
Now there's thread creep on a monumental scale.

Is there a market for the A380? Of course there is. How big is it? Well, quite big, actually. How big? Time will tell. Markets develop, shift and change, you know. And the example of Concorde is a very poor one, though apt in a lot of ways. There was an amount of scuppering there from certain factions on the other side of the Atlantic. This time the Europeans have got their act together to an extent where that really won't be allowed to happen again because Europe as a whole has too high a population for the U.S. to ignore - a trade war would hurt!

Well since we want to go into innaccuracies.

The "Tax breaks" given by the state of Washington were to bring the state into alignment with the tax policies of other states, and not specific to Boeing. Infact those exact same breaks are available to Airbus should they decide to do aircraft work in the state of Washington. Are similar grants to boeing available to from the EU as were given to Airbus?

The Maintenance center was not paid for by the state of indiana though it is most certainly empty. Again, as the space if vacant it is available for lease should Airbus like to use it.

Actually the Airforce has been trying to get tankers for quite some time now. The price paid would still be less than trying to operate the old E's Incase you haven't noticed the operational tempo of the US military has been quite high and there is a critical shortage of tankers available, but once again congress if fiddling while Rome burns....


But you can't complain at all about any military pecurement because Airbus's military contracts are larger than Boeing...

As to airbus aircraft prices. No airline in the world pays list price for airliners Everyone knows that. Huge discounts happen on those. Launch customers get even larger discounts than that...

My bone of contention is not the jobs.

My bone of contention is that profitable companies are being destroyed by government jobs agencies. Airbus perverts the free market by not having to pay its R and D expenses...

Maybe its time for a taste of your own medicine. By effectively dumping aircraft (not having to pay developement costs so you are selling the aircraft below their cost) you have initiated a trade war already. And you can't claim its to catch up if you have 50 percent of the market already...


And I see that once again its America's fault that concorde flopped. If it was such a great aircraft, why couldn't it go somewhere else than America. Surely there are other city pairs the same distance or less as london and NY... Infact if you were to take a globe you would be astonished at the number of places on earth similar distances apart and not part of America, yet the concorde couldn't make a go of that either. Certainly that wouldn't be America's fault, would it?

Cheers
Wino

First point - might well be true, but why would they want to do that?

Second point - no it isn't, it's already been leased (tentatively), though a vertain someone in the know was the one who told me that the IMC was paid for by Indiana. If you know people high in the United eng. org., you'll probably know who.

Third point - may be less but still over the odds....

What military contracts would they be? As far as I know they only have the A400M, don't they? And that A310 tanker thing of which there are what, half a dozen? Compare that to Boeing's mil. work.

Your next point is no doubt true - launch customers no doubt get big discounts. But tell me, what gives more to Airbus - 85% of 200 million or 85% of 300 million?

Where did you hear that Airbus R&D is paid by anyone other than Airbus?

I haven't dumped aircraft - I can't. I'm a lowly engineer for an company that knows the A380 well. But I'm stongly pro A380 and anti-poor-Boeing-it's-not-fair-they're-not-nice-to-us-in-Europe-meisters. Too good for too long. Don't get me wrong. I love the Boeing products too - without them I wouldn't have a job. I don't love the whingeing, though. I mean, airlines continued ordering aircraft. What were Airbus supposed to do? Stop building them? "Nope. Sorry. Wino says we're dumping aircraft. Can't let you have any aircraft, matey! Come back when Boeing are churning 'em out and we might be allowed to talk". What ARE these subsidies you keep banging on about? Oh, loans, I see.

And on your final point - my belief is that, yes it is. It would always have made sense only over water due to the sonic boom (or vast expanses of desert). You evidnetly didn't hear about the service to Bahrain, Singapore and Rio, then? Or are they all a part of America now?

This is my last post on the subject unless it returns to the original point - is there a market. This bashing isn't getting anybody anywhere.

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....

Quite. And lots of those 74s are getting long in the tooth now, so the replacement market is quite large, is it not? How many 744s have been delivered? And there's your market for A380s, more or less.

That is the whole point Pada-K-Bear, the 744 is being replaced by the B777 family and the A330/340 family, NOT by the A380.

The A380 is introducing a category of it's own and yes, the demand is for a few by each of the major carriers to satisfy a few routes which, unfortunately, won't add up to a break even figure.

I'm not swayed by large orders from Emirates etc. as they will dump them as soon as they discover they don't need them. The carriers that will count are the likes of LH, BA, AF, UAL, JAL etc. etc.
Well, that is my view, anyway!:D

Omark,

Patently not true.

Orders from AF (747 operator), LH (ditto), QANTAS (ditto), Malaysian (ditto), Singapore (ditto), Virgin (guess what, ditto again!)... are you seeing a pattern here yet? No? Thai (747 operator) announcing that they will. FedEx wanting something to replace MD11s on their higher density routes. Emirates, Qatar et al are exceptions but are patently trying to lift traffic from the "traditional" long haul airlines and want a tool that will allow them to do it. How do you differentiate yourself from the existing airlines? Price will do it nicely, thank you very much. Oh yes, and making damn sure no-one else can get the aircraft into their fleets because you have so many production slots!

Your 777 and A330/A340 statement really doesn't hold water when you look at who has ordered it, who is interested in it and which of them operate 747s today. Ultimately, I believe BA will do it, and I believe JAL and CX will do it for their long haul as well. NW may well go that route, but United's days as a serious long haul player may be numbered, so they may well not do and rely on LH feeding the Chicago hub with A380s then dispersing that traffic throughout the US.

So you completely discount the fact that over 70 percent of all 747s were bought for their RANGE and not their size? So the 30 percent of 747s that were bought for their size are available for trade up, but what killed the 747 on the north atlantic was not a bigger aircraft. It was a smaller one that could now fly that range efficiently.

And as the 777/340s grew in range they replaced more and more 747s even though the 340's seat mile costs were higher if you filled both aircraft. The problem is that airlines most markets couldn't support a 747 so the smaller 340s 767s and 777 were better for the job since they could fly that distance profitably now.


Amazing how easily you discount the last 15 years of history or so...

CHeers
Wino