A380 flown to disassembly
Quoting myself. But for the curious, the series of miscalculations mixed with hubris was well documented as far back as 2008. The writing was on the wall for the 380 for many years.
”The A380 debacle was well described in this book:
Quote:
Airbus vs Boeing by John Newhouse, published in 2008.
It’s still an interesting read. The book describes a combination of hubris on the part of Airbus, faulty market analysis, and the mistaken assumption (as verified by td) that the B747 must somehow be a cash cow for Boeing as the 747 lacked a direct market competitor.”
”The A380 debacle was well described in this book:
Quote:
Airbus vs Boeing by John Newhouse, published in 2008.
It’s still an interesting read. The book describes a combination of hubris on the part of Airbus, faulty market analysis, and the mistaken assumption (as verified by td) that the B747 must somehow be a cash cow for Boeing as the 747 lacked a direct market competitor.”
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Airbus makes good products. I have quite a bit of time in the 320 series. But their marketing department needs to be taken out and shot. The 340 and 380 were both commercial catastrophes. What the market wanted was a 330, but Airbus initially dumbed the 330 down to be a much shorter range aircraft. Airbus's marketing department then allowed themselves to get bullied into spending billions on the A350. Then, they back off, and start offering the 330Neo. They are now splitting the orders between the 350 and 330.
Airbus's biggest strength, is that their biggest competitor is more screwed up than they are. Screwed up in different ways, but still screwed up. Airbus should outsource their marketing department to Boeing. That is about the only thing Boeing gets right.
Somehow, Boeing forgot how to build airplanes.
Airbus's biggest strength, is that their biggest competitor is more screwed up than they are. Screwed up in different ways, but still screwed up. Airbus should outsource their marketing department to Boeing. That is about the only thing Boeing gets right.
Somehow, Boeing forgot how to build airplanes.
I like that Airbus is still trying to worm out of a court declaration they received unfair government aid to develop the A380 on the grounds that it was such a failure that it did not affect Boeing. Right. So while Airbus was flush with direct government support cash and Boeing was struggling to keep up, nothing else of any import was going on.
N4790P
Maybe so, but there is no prospect of major hub airports being designed (ie rebuilt) to manage that. It's bad enough with the volumes being dumped all at once at immigration queues now, to say nothing of 2 - 3 hour waits for baggage. Unless most, if not all, major hub airports start a redesign and rebuild programme now, to come on stream in 20 years time, to cope with an imaginary large aircraft that exists only on its designer's future projects drawing board, if it exists at all, there will be no demand from airlines for anything bigger than the current range of heavy twins. And quite right too; these mega-aircraft are an abomination.
PS remind me of how long it takes to disembark a full A380, from stopping at the gate, through one hole at the front of the aircraft, or two if you're lucky. And then imagine 1,000 passengers doing that. The industry has gone mad; air transport is supposed to be quick and efficient, and here we are, even now, adding up to 3 hours to each end of a long-haul flight. It's madness.
PS remind me of how long it takes to disembark a full A380, from stopping at the gate, through one hole at the front of the aircraft, or two if you're lucky. And then imagine 1,000 passengers doing that. The industry has gone mad; air transport is supposed to be quick and efficient, and here we are, even now, adding up to 3 hours to each end of a long-haul flight. It's madness.
Immigration queues have nothing to do with the aircraft type you fly in on. Spent well over 2 hours at LHR T2 recently Inter Europe on a narrow body!!!
If they can process 100 passengers per hour and a 100 passenger plane arrives, then it will take 1 hour for the last person to clear.
If 600 people arrive on one plane then it will take 6 hours.
Since the alternative to 600 people on one plane was multiple planes on a staggered schedule (they would not fly them simultaneously) then the depth of the queue will be greater than if, for example, it was 6 100-passenger planes at 1 hour intervals. Producing a huge spike in delivered passengers was exactly the reason the A380 was created in order to avoid multiple planes to move the same number of people.
N4790P
The length of the queue does have something to do with demand.
If they can process 100 passengers per hour and a 100 passenger plane arrives, then it will take 1 hour for the last person to clear.
If 600 people arrive on one plane then it will take 6 hours.
Since the alternative to 600 people on one plane was multiple planes on a staggered schedule (they would not fly them simultaneously) then the depth of the queue will be greater than if, for example, it was 6 100-passenger planes at 1 hour intervals. Producing a huge spike in delivered passengers was exactly the reason the A380 was created in order to avoid multiple planes to move the same number of people.
If they can process 100 passengers per hour and a 100 passenger plane arrives, then it will take 1 hour for the last person to clear.
If 600 people arrive on one plane then it will take 6 hours.
Since the alternative to 600 people on one plane was multiple planes on a staggered schedule (they would not fly them simultaneously) then the depth of the queue will be greater than if, for example, it was 6 100-passenger planes at 1 hour intervals. Producing a huge spike in delivered passengers was exactly the reason the A380 was created in order to avoid multiple planes to move the same number of people.
Sorry but just doesn't work that way. We were stuck behind a group of about 50 pax all whom seemed to have incorrect documentation and each one took ages to be either processed or rejected. Nothing to do with spikes or multiple arrivals
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If 600 people arrive on one plane then it will take 6 hours.
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Triploss, it's not as common as it used to be, but I've run into cases where a one way ticket was actually more than a round trip. About 25 years ago, I was leaving on an extended overseas assignment, so I was going to drive my car to my parents house in Colorado to store and fly back home. It was cheaper to buy the round trip ticket and leave the second half unused than to buy one-way.
But that doesn't mean that the return has zero or minimal value. You're still buying two journeys on one ticket - they simply will refuse to sell you a cheap outward journey unless you also pay for the cheap return journey, but that means the ticket is constructed as something 2x300 GBP (not 598 GBP plus 2 GBP). That 300 GBP fare 1-way fare has a condition attached, which is: must be ticketed together with a return journey (that return journey will happen to be available at a similar price). You can find 1-way fares without the return condition... but they just cost a lot more.
It may not seem logical from the outside perspective, and it does seem like they're giving you an effectively free return - but the underlying construction is fares for each journey, which may have the requirement to be part of a round-trip ticket (cheaper) or not (more expensive). Just like they can have requirements around having e.g. 6 days between outbound and inbound (cheaper), or no requirement (more expensive). Or refundable (more expensive), non-refundable but rebookable for a free (less expensive), and sometimes completely non-changeable (even cheaper). Similar reason why Milan-Zurich-SFO might be cheaper than Zurich-SFO even though you sit on the same long Zurich-SFO flight. All around optimising what you can pay.
And if you buy a lot of returns where the return isn't used, expect your travel agent or employer to be contacted for some extra cash. But that's only a risk for very frequent travellers...
The duration of the backlog is proportional to the number in line. While the total processed per day has a limit, the length of the line depends on the peak arrivals.
N4790P
I assume you mean that you were behind passengers who were being cleared at nearly 0 per hour, in which case you are still in line and will never leave. "Ages" to clear means it took some amount of time, so if 500 of them arrived in a single batch ahead of you would that take A) just the same amount of time before they got to you or B) 10 X as long as it took to deal with 50 of them?
The duration of the backlog is proportional to the number in line. While the total processed per day has a limit, the length of the line depends on the peak arrivals.
The duration of the backlog is proportional to the number in line. While the total processed per day has a limit, the length of the line depends on the peak arrivals.
As for your other comments, we shall have to differ as my experiences of immigration queues are so vastly different to yours.
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An aircraft designed for spoke and hub operations just as the industry moved to point-to-point. A fantastic technical tour-de-force but mismatched with current route economics.
I must plan a trip on one soon so I can experience it as a passenger. I regret not booking a trip on Concorde when I had the chance.
I must plan a trip on one soon so I can experience it as a passenger. I regret not booking a trip on Concorde when I had the chance.
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Yep, ten out of ten for whoever came up with the “smiley” paint scheme on the XL ...
https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news...xl-s-face.html
https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news...xl-s-face.html
The A380's shape looks pretty much like a supersized A319. It's not overly exotic. The wing is big because they had intended to reuse it for stretched versions.
I assume it is being parted out, the engines will fetch a pretty price, and much of the avionics, but it does seem incredulous that such a modern transport aircraft is being disposed of in this way, given that 35 year old 767's are still viable.
As for the the A380 can't comment, efficient twins will always have a market, beyond that is anyone's guess.
As for the the A380 can't comment, efficient twins will always have a market, beyond that is anyone's guess.