i wonder what BA will do? their 380 fleet (13?) is now quite niche

the config is F14 C97 W55 Y303

stay with 777 787 and now 350's?

the 767's are almost gone and now 3 leased 773's have been taken to replace the oldest trio of GE90 non ER 772 a/c

always amazed me that the likes of BA VS KL SA ANZ CX and QF did not go for the 747-800 and get Mr B to give them a very good deal and maybe take their 744's in return

Not me. The -8's are hugely expensive. Twin-engined widebody's are the future. . . .

The Denver International Airport Authority isn't undertaking a multiyear expansion, adding 39 new gates for pending arrivals of Boeing or Airbus jumbos, but it does give good indication which direction airlines are headed in terms of aircraft sizes...

What makes China not buy more significant numbers of A380s? They have the market, the airports, the routes and the money.

In practice when I'm rotating in my 380, the 380 behind me receives a takeoff clearance, and so on and so on.

You still have time separation behind a Triple when 320 or 737s are next in line...

I've often had 600 plus pax plus all of their bags plus 25 tonnes of freight. The 380 can carry the weight- the problem is bulky stuff like a whole Ferrari!

I would hardly call the 767 a miscue, with over 1,100 built so far (more prolific than the 707) and a healthy backlog of orders for new build freighters, I think a production run sustained for 40+ years is a mark of a great success!

BA have stated quite a few times that they would like to enlarge their 380 fleet - if the price was right!

Well for those of you who went to Farnborough last week the A380 was certainly centre stage - although it did seem to be a plug for Global Warming being festooned in livery forecasting that the Coral Reefs will be gone by 2050. Tours for the public inside but when I passed on Saturday it seemed to be just for the privileged few. Also the new A350-1000 which flew in the air displays doing acrobatics I hope none of you pilots do when you have real passengers aboard. I certainly didn't get the impression that its days are numbered.

The economics are a challenge if the aircraft isn't filled and fuel prices are low. So airline managers (largely risk averse, systematised creatures these days) have generally given it a wide berth. If oil goes back above $100 (and recent history has shown nobody can accurately forecast that) and the industry gains a bit of confidence then there is certainly a place for both the 380s and the smaller twins. Given a choice between economy in a 787 and an A380 I know which I would rather travel in. But passenger preference is increasingly less relevant to the industry's calculations.

It's not a matter of mass. It's a question of volume. Passenger baggage is low density, taking up lots of space without weighing all that much. The lower lobe (cargo deck) volume of an A380 is actually LESS than 777-300ER's lower lobe volume (175.3 cuM vs 201.6 cuM). But since the A380 is a double deck above, it carries far more people so that lower lobe is filled with much more luggage, leaving little space for freight. How much freight weight can be carried depends on both the number of passengers aboard and the distance to be flown. As a comparison, according to Emirates, on the city-pairs they operate, an A380 with a full pax load the average freight capacity is 50 cuM and 8000 kgs and for a 777-300ER with a full pax load it's 125 cuM and 23,000 kg. That's a huge difference in freight capacity for the much "smaller" aircraft. And freight generates serious profits. And that's why airlines buy airplanes. To make money. And here's the troublesome part: Boeing is coming out with a bigger and significantly more efficient version of the 777 which will further shrink the A380s market niche and further shrink its profitability. The business case for stretching/upgrading the A380 is non existent, even if Airbus magically found the resources to do so.

Again, addressing the secondary market, if you turn an A380 into a high density passenger hauler serving the charter market, can you fit all the passengers' luggage into the cargo hold, or are you going to have to restrict the amount of baggage passengers can bring aboard? Crunch the numbers: an Emirates A380 in three class configuration fills 75% of its cargo volume with baggage and has 25% cargo volume margin for freight. That means a high density configuration that carries more than 25% additional passengers than the Emirates configuration will not have room for all the baggage unless there are baggage restrictions. How will that sell?

Douglas seriously looked at a double decker when they designed the MD-12. The economics did not make sense and it was never built. It seems Airbus was too intent on "one upping" Boeing and pressed ahead with a slightly bigger aircraft than the MD-12 and thus would have an even smaller (and more questionable) niche market. And so here they are, with "the best yet to come." Yah shur.

Very unlikely. Texas by itself is scheduled to become the world's number 3 producer of oil by 2019. The Permian Basin (west Texas) is growing very fast with oil that is profitable at $40 per barrel. The biggest constraint in the Permian is pipe capacity, and there are a number of pipelines scheduled to come on line soon. The Eagle Ford (south Texas) has even more oil than the Permian and is only slightly more expensive to drill and pump, with the costs going steadily down. Eagle Ford is in the early development stages relative to Permian, so over time there will be more and more oil available. OPEC can no longer control the price of oil and their ability to do so will only decrease over time. And that's just Texas. There is LOTS more oil in other states as well as Canada. And Trump has authorized that pipeline from Canada to the Texas coast that Obama killed.

The demand for oil is rising steadily. But the supply is rising faster. That means steady or declining prices.

Of course it is more thirsty, it is bigger.
If fully loaded and on the mission it is designed for, the a380 burns less fuel per passenger than the 777. 787/A350 are newer design with newer technology, so they do indeed burn less per passenger.
It is not the number of engines, and if exceeding a certain size, there is no other option than having 4 engines.

Given the choice between a non-stop flight on a 787 and a flight via a hub to fill an A380 I would exactly know what I would travel in: In the A350 nonstop ;)

There probably is agood reason (or actually two more...) why Boeing never changed the 747 to full double deck. Looking at the dreamlifter, they may have been able to do so, but actually it does not make sense.
Airbus once had a major market advantage for the A300 compared to the Boeing products, because they offered more cargo space which allowed the airlines to do additional profit. On the A380 they did the opposite, and it hurts. Initially they went for a conventional environmental control arrangement, but later moved it to the wing roots to gain some more cargo space. They also (compared to the 747) selected a body gear arrangement which allows additional cargo space between, still it is not that much.

They still have to proof that this does not only look like a clever design, but actually works in real service life... Adding complexity rarely pays off.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say both the 747 and A380 will continue on for a very long time. The 747 will get some further tweeks, the A380 will get a longer fuselage. Airport planners in Asia are already talking about designs for airports and terminals which will see 500+ million pax per year. The new twins are magnificent air frames, but they are not the 747 or A380. Their demise is greatly exaggerated to paraphrase the well know quote.

The dreamlifter is mostly non pressurized, so not applicable. Boeing chose to stretch the 747 fuselage rather than just extend the upper deck because they wanted to increase passenger AND freight capacity. Extending just the upper deck increases passenger capacity while reducing freight capacity.


In Boeing aircraft "a conventional environmental control arrangement" puts the system in the wing to body fairings OUTside of the fuselage, so it does not reduce cargo hold capacity.

That's the big advantage of the 777 vis a vis cargo space. There is no body gear. With the exception of the centerwing structure, the entire lower lobe is available for cargo. No gear retracting into the body.


The folding wing design on the 777X is exceptionally simple. The flap system on a 747 is far far more complex and "actually works in real service life." For that matter the landing gear retraction/extension system on a typical airliner is far more complex than the 777's wing fold mechanism and they certainly "actually work in real service life."

You may be right, but on the other hand......
1. The 747-8I (the passenger model) is essentially done. Only 747-8Fs are selling.
2. The business case for stretching the A380 is non existent. The base design needs to be profitable before major upgrades like new engines or stretch configurations can even be contemplated. And the base design is simply not making a profit for Airbus.

Hard to believe I know, but seriously, I was sat at the back of the Dash 8 and it was smooth as silk. Business class in the 777 was very noisy and juddery in comparison, it wasn't turbulence either.

Come again?

Lets see the business progress of HIFLY, in the charter and ACMI market.

That appears to be a pipe dream.
Malaysia Airlines was unable to offload six aircrafts
It made plans for a charter business of their own, that went nowhere.

Thai Airways disputably was trying to sell six frames could not find buyers for its six A380's

The first two retired Singapore Airlines A380's are being scrapped, after just 10 years of service
Searching for buyers failed, active negotiations included British Airways, Iran Air and Hi Fly (charter)
There were reports that Hi Fly would lease the two frames (Apr 2018), but later (June 2018) Dr. Peters (owners) confirmed the plan to scrap.

What a second hand market that is!

Look more closely at that video. Those are wing mounted landing gear retracting into the area between the wings. Both the 747 and the A380 have four main gear legs: two mounted on the wings (like the 777) plus two mounted on the fuselage. Those body gear eat into the cargo hold volume. The 777 does not have such body gear which gives it an advantage in hauling belly freight.

I keep seeing this claim that the A380 reduces congestion at major hubs. i seriously question that. This is ONLY true if every passenger on board an A380 has as their home point or final destination the major hub. Those passengers that either live farther away from the hub or whose destination is farther from the hub need to be fed to and from the hub on smaller aircraft. So every A380 flight may require two, three, or more feeder flights both into and out of BOTH hubs by smaller feeder aircraft. That INcreases congestion. Smaller long range aircraft (like A350 and 787) truly reduce congestion at the hubs by enabling a direct flight from the feeder airport to another feeder airport, entirely eliminating the need to stop at the congested hub. A380 only makes sense in a hub and spoke system and planes like the A350 and 787 are disrupting the hub and spoke system.

So when someone asks: "Would you rather fly an A380 or a 787/A350" the real question should be "would you rather fly in a 737/A320 then an A380 and then a 737/A320 or just fly direct in an A350/787?" The answer should be obvious.

It would be interesting to see just how many 787/A350 routes don't have a hub at either one end or the other, which is what the above implies.

You missed my point. A380 pretty much MUST operate out of major hubs. 787/A350 MAY operate out of major hubs, but also MAY operate out of much smaller airports. What's that mean? The A380 is restricted to a market niche and must compete against 747/777/787/A350 in that niche. 787/A350 operate in a much larger market and for a good portion of that market do not have to compete against the A380 at all.

And you in turn have missed mine.

You are implying that the alternative to a point-to-point direct flight on a 787/A350 would necessitate a 3-leg itinerary from the origin to Hub A, then onward to Hub B, and finally to the destination.

I'm suggesting that there are relatively few city pairs that currently require 3 legs to get between but which would nevertheless be capable (traffic-wise) of supporting a direct service. So it's not really a valid comparison.

And yes, I'm aware of the difference between the markets that the A380 is targeted at and those for the 787/A350.

As several have pointed out here, the market and the punters have spoken. My first flight from EWR to the UK, to get to Belfast, was on a 747 to London 30 years ago . Right now there are many non stops to the UK and Ireland from NYC area. All on twins. Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Cork !! , have a least one non stop. You can call NYC a hub, but most of the destinations outside of London are not.
Another factor is not only what a twin can do , but the old treaties forced airlines to funnel through a national hub. That is no more. Who would have imagined flying from Cork to New York on a 737 even 10 years ago? Another factor no one has mentioned here is landing fees and costs. The more connections, the more someone has to pay. Which is interesting as the non stops are sometimes more expensive than a connecting flight. That tells me airlines can get a premium by saving people time.
The A380 may be a great plane, but it was the wrong bet. One item I read years back was Boeing figured the weight penalty of the second floor with the drag of the bigger fuselage (function of the area, the square of the tube diameter) and the 4 engines was always going to make the double decker an non starter.
Lucky or good, Boeing got it right.
20driver

That of course makes sense, but about Malaysia Airlines who could not find buyers for six frames and if true that Thai Airways wanted to sell, it was in the same situation.
Add Amedeo Leasing which will be sitting on twelve A380's due to be back in a few years.
It has actively been campaigning for replacement leases, but to avail.
So bad it is planning its own "rent a seat" all A380 airline.

Without cargo ops it seems 4 donks is almost extinct

What is so special about an A380 reducing congestion at major hubs? A 787 or A330 will also reduce congestion. If the 737s/A320s are replaced with 787s/A330s the congestion is being reduced. The only situation where this situation is unique to the A380 is if the hub is already full of 777s/A350s.

I think there are many industries where this applies. The most obvious is Supermarkets. They always say, "We only offer what our customers want" But I have never had a supermarket ask me what I want - and I'm 61! But I have had supermarkets stop selling things I like and the only explanation they give is that not enough people were buying it. When they replace the item with their own brand look-alike product, one sees the lie.

I do not think that ANY global industry truly listens to it's customers. Look at the tech companies who supply computers, tablets and mobile (cell) phones.
End of rant.

Emirates currently has near 50% more 777's than 380's in the fleet
It has near to twice as many 777's on order than it does.380's.
That, to me, paints a picture about fleet expansion, especially since orders for smaller Boeing's (77X/787) outpaced A380 about 9:1 in the past four years.

And nearly 50% of all the 326 77X orders come from EK .Sound similar to the 380 story at all? When the price tag touches over half a billion dollars per unit airlines become a bit shy with their money. 235 of the 326 77X orders come from three companies, being EK, QR and EY. Haven't we seen this before somewhere?

You can get almost 3 787s for the price of one 77X or a 380. The lesser lease/capital cost mean bean counters are able to make far larger bonuses from these smaller aeroplanes. Why would they not want to buy them?

EK operate up to a couple of services a day to MRU, BHX, MAN, LGW, NCE, PRG, VIE with a 380 .A couple of those destinations are with a 2 class aeroplane with over 600 pax seats .So I am thinking the argument stating it can only operate to major hubs is not a valid one.

Compared to the design of some aircraft carrier operated military aircraft or some folding wing motorgliders I do not think so.
There are for example 4 individually actuated latch pins, there is a locking mechanism and there is a folding actuator meaning 6 actuators where most landing gears have only two...
And the folding axis is not perpendicular to the wing centerline, making the structure around it extremely complex. (The alternative would have been more air loads during taxi)

It puts the A/C packs in the fairings, the recirc filters, mixers, fans etc. are all between the cargo bay and the center wing box reducing the available cargo volume.

I was more thinking about aerodynamics and weight. Extending the conventional pressurized 747 upper deck all the way back to the tail would have been relatively easy (they partially did it on the -300 EUD and the -400, they could have streched it even further), but would have created the same issues the A380 has (as you correctly identified): lack of cargo space per passenger and lack of cargo weight capacity.
Not talking area ruling and trassonic drag...

Where the comparison with the 747 flap system goes astray, is that the folding wing folds in the direction of the main force (up) where the track system folds in the direction of the wing cord (and down). The flap system thus needs less safety measures to stop it from extending or retracting due to aerodynamic forces.

KLM stretched the the top deck of their 742 to the length of the 743. This actually ended up reducing overall fuel burn due to lower drag, even though weight was added. https://www.airlinereporter.com/2012...pper-deck-sud/