A380 - the best is yet to come
 

Marketing hype or genuine possibility?. Personally I have a feeling that the bird has flown on any chance for the A380 to be a commercial success.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44867749

They should have made it easier to make a freighter version or at least a viable conversion.

Airbus always has bet on fuel above 100$ and congestion/saturation in some major airports , especially Europeans ones to justify the 380 . . They got it wrong ( so far ) on the fuel price, but congestion is coming , and very fast ..So I will not bury the beast yet..

Something of a problem when the predicted major market would rather just expand airport capacity at a seemingly endless rate than operate larger aircraft.

A doubling of A380 operations might alleviate runway congestion but will the terminals be able to cope?

Maybe not in the short term , but on the other hand it is far easier and much quicker to build an extra terminal and an apron than an extra runway .

This sounds nice on paper, but .... It might work if only 380ies would operate from these runways. But as DXB shows, a mixed operation with 737, 320 and smaller needs greater separation due to wake-turbulence of the supers. Even heavies need more separation from the behemoths. DXB during rush hour has a steady and very healthy mix of S/H/M and sometimes L aircraft. The result is some painful waiting for TO or LDG and i reckon a haul of more or less the same amount of total pax per hour as without the supers. At least not that much of a spectacular increase worth more supers.
I guess that no airport would go down the road of super and heavy only. They might improve the situation if they dedicated one runway for the biggies and another one for the rest, but even this would face some huge organisational problems not worth more supers.

Airbus were ALWAYS going to build it - alone. The men at the top just HAD to build something bigger than Boeing. It's the way humans work. On a more practical note, Heathrow will be delighted as it's the only way to get easy extra capactiy. Especially since R3 will never be built. {Tosees hand grenade over shoulder and leaves the bar ...}

The problem with the "alleviating congestion" story is that nearly every airport has far more short-haul flights than long-haul, and far more flights on sub-200 seat airplanes than supra-200 seat airplanes. Therefore, the A380's ability to alleviate congestion is very limited. It is just not economic to operate on short sectors -- and most long-sector routes (aside from NYC-LON and a few others) don't support multiple dozen daily frequencies that would be a prerequisite for the A380 to be both economic and to make any dent in congestion. Consolidating 3x773s into 2xA380s on a route isn't going to move the congestion needle.

As I understand it, the A380 has much more volume than the weight it could lift in a cargo configuration with typical cargo loads, so what would a freighter version of it look like? Bigger engines in order to take advantage of more of it's copious volume? Also there's the question of airport infrastructure at places where manufacturing takes place, which aren't necessarily the big passenger hubs.

It seems like it's fundamentally a bet on the hub and spoke model for passengers, and was designed accordingly, which to some degree excludes its use as an efficient dedicated freighter.

Twin engined aircraft are much cheaper to operate and have the same or better range than four engine models. Bye bye 747 and 380 aircraft.

But isn't the direction of travel in the industry to use smaller regional airports for point to point travel. The big hubs like LHR might be congested but the Hub model is dying. I see that even Southend is having a renaissance.

True. But that only matters if it's aircraft-mile costs (as opposed to SMCs) that are important and/or if you want to fly a long way. Which, admittedly, is the case for many (but not all) markets.

If there were no routes on which the A380/B748 had better economics, everyone would just have bought 777-300ERs instead.

Who knows what the future may hold. It's interesting that Emirates decided to buy more airframes rather than see it go out of production, so there's at least one major customer who believes in it. And having ridden it as a paying customer, I can fully understand why Emirates likes it. It was a totally full flight, and it was excellent. Had RR engines too which was nice, but I'm biased...

Time will, of course, tell. There's some studied opinions here and there that suggest that a properly optimised, NEO version would have very good economics provided you could fill it. However it's clear that buying A380 requires the customer to have been taking very large brave pills; buying big is a once-in-a-lifetime bet. Perhaps when (if?) the world economy gets properly back into the swing of things... Anyway, I suspect that if an A380neo turned up operating in competition on your most profitable long haul route, you'd soon be waving goodbye to your passengers. That kinda happens now with the A380 as it is today.

Personally speaking I hope that it does succeed in the long run. It's not reasonable to call it a failure at the moment, even if you do take a one-model-at-a-time approach to company accounting. Has Airbus made a profit out of it? Likely not. Has Airbus got endless free marketing out of it (for it's luxury, passenger popularity, etc)? Oh yes. Have they re-used a lot of the engineering on other models? Yes.

Regarding the public popularity of it, when an aircraft is so good that my aged mother knows what it's called and makes flight purchasing decisions based on who is operating it, then that aircraft has made a deep impression on the public. Nothing else in the sky has ever done that! I'd also heard that Emirates a while back had to replace their 777 service Manchester-Dubai because no one was buying tickets for it; they were all buying tickets for the other two services of the day which were A380.

Maybe that's why Emirates are so keen to keep the production line going. They know that if they stop operating A380s and replace it with something inferior, their passenger share will likely suffer.

If memory serves, the 747 was similarly an aircraft that sold poorly during its first decade. If that precedent holds true, the 380 should see a resurgence, perhaps in another couple of years.
Real challenge is whether Airbus is prepared to invest in a stretch, which would be the next logical step.
Imho, the gating item is the ground processing, not the market demand. We need to be able to process a planeload of passengers instantly, rather than serially.
Boarding procedures that date back to the age of sail need to be brought up to date if aviation is to step into the future.

I think you are in a minority there. In my experience most PAX have no idea what aluminium tube they are sitting in and decide on their flight by looking to see who has the cheapest ticket on Priceline.com and hit that button.

I went to a briefing with ATC from Heathrow. The most common aircraft there is the A320/737, and they said that the 380 had the effect of reducing the airport capacity because of the extra spacing that they were required to put into the approach paths.

I fly the 380, and whilst I like it, it's quite obvious that it was an Airbus/Boeing pissing contest, and little more.

Apples and oranges - when the 747 entered service in 1970, it was only expected to sell 200 units - TOTAL - and it was something of a surprise to Boeing that it sold as well as it did. The market was a small fraction of what it is today - the total worldwide jetliner production in the 1970s is dwarfed by just the 737 (or A320) production today. And even then, Boeing delivered ~700 747s in the first 15 years of service.
What really made the 747 popular was the -400 model - nearly half of all 747s produced were 747-400/400F. A big selling point for the 747-400 was it's range - basically if you needed the range of a 747-400, you had to have a 747-400, even if you couldn't fill it. Today, there are numerous twins that match the range of a A380/747, so they only make sense if you can fill them on a regular basis.
The A380 has been awash in red ink since it was launched - most A380s produced to date cost more to build than they sold for - and that's not going to improve with the planned 8/year production rate. Forget about ever making back the tens of billions in development costs...
But the new twins (787/A350/777X) have seat mile costs as good or better than the A380.
I've flown on the A380 and loved it - I fully understand why it's very popular with passengers in general. But it's not popular with the bean counters.

That's consistent with what i posted earlier in the DXB case. These two airports handle the biggest 380 traffic.
Reality invalidates the argument of increasing hub capacity with the 380!

Most comfortable, smooth and quiet aircraft I have flown on for 50 years, I am sure that people are paying,, and will continue to pay, the premium necessary to fly this bird. Now if only they could get one into Georgetown, cruise liners dump 15,000 people on the dock every day, so why not extend the runway into the sea and bus a few hundred in by air - now I'm getting really selfish.

There is no doubt that the likes of Emirates and other significant fleet owners of A380 continue to hoover up large numbers of b*ms on seats from other operators. Now, our Willy has many faults but he definitely has a future eye for what works from a business perspective, hence the rumors of another buy although a "stretch" might be a bridge too far. :=

Still not firmed up though: BA A380 rumours

IG

Strange. The steadily increasing number of A380 movements at LHR over the years hasn't resulted in any reduction in the numbers of either flights or passengers that the airport has handled.

Something doesn't quite add up.

Out of the Middle East in the summer months the B777 and A330 suffer significant payload restrictions due to high temps adversely affecting engine failure at take off figures. To overcome this the airline can either restrict payload or change the schedule to a cooler part of the day/night, both of which affect the transfer feed.

The A380 doesn't have the same issues and can still operate at capacity.

It will be interesting to see if the 2nd hand market for A380 attracts a charter operator who utilises the full 800+ capacity. That might make quite a difference. One A380 instead of 4 x B737/A320. It isn't unusual to see 3 or 4 operators operating the same route at a similar time. Could one operator of an A380 take the prize?

re the 747 early sales, once the PW engine probs were sorted out after the 2nd year of Ops 1971 the 747 was ordered by almost every legacy airline in the world and 200B models plus the option of RR and GE engines came along PDQ
initial sales were not that bad but the project did almost break Boeing as we all know

the 747's size and weight at first caused airports to have to get ready to receive 747's so perhaps AB should have stayed their design on the same platform as the 747 thus its route availability would have been the same as the Jumbo

once upon a time from the early/mid 70's IT charter airports like Palma Tenerife Faro Ibiza Las Palmas etc were all seen with large WB jets seating 300/350/400
Laker Finnair and Condor DC10's then MD11's of LTU and Finnair
LTU Court and British Airtours Tristars
BOAC Condor KLM Scanair Aer Lingus Sabena Martinair 747's
A300's Germanair Laker Karair Monarch and many more
767's Britannia and Braathens from 1984

now these airports rarely see many WB holiday jets - TCK Jet2 and TOM/BY in UK still send their big stuff out short haul in the summer but not may EU airlines have WB charter jets

all we see now is lines and lines of 320 family and 737's plus EMB's plus a few 757's

not many of those airports except Palma has seen an A380 as yet afaik

You need to expand your experience, everyone I talk to gets very excited about flying on a 787 or 380. The public are quite savvy and the general knowledge of the superior comfort on the 380 is well known.
Personally, given the option I will always get on a 380. the ride alone is enough, but the peace and quiet is a game changer. I flew on four aircraft types within 24hrs on a trip to Oz last year. 320, 380, 777, Dash 8. the 777 was by far the worst. Bumpy ride, rattley and noisy. All the nay sayers here are either Airbus phobic or Boeing employees.
The 380 is a terrific aircraft. It will be around for a long time. Celebrate it.


PS. Yes, Emirates operate 3 x 380 per day from MAN to DBX and they are full most days.

I have just booked a return trip to Aus (from the UK) and choice of A380/350 for the route was one deciding factor. 777 is on my avoid if possible for long haul list.

That's an interesting perspective.
I wonder what that does to the QANTAS 787 flights out of Perth direct London in the middle of summer when PER is 42 deg in the water bag.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2...1127953615.jpgThe highest hourly earner is Emirates. It made $25,308 (£19,000) from the London Heathrow to Dubai route


The above, a cut from an article about the 10 highest earning airline routes in the world, would tend to debunk the “not economical to operate" argument in this thread. All DXB - LHR - DXB flights are 380 operated.

I'd like to see that expressed as Return on Investment.
It does not look like something that I'd be investing in.

God I hope not. Can you imagine the scenes when your 380 goes sick at some tiny holiday airport like Chania or Rhodes and 800 people are stuck there.

I wouldn't be so hasty to write off the 747-8F just yet. I suspect the Big Bird will still be flying around in some form long after most of us have shuffled off this mortal coil. I was at the Everett plant last month and the integration of the 747F & 767F lines was most impressive. If Boeing can keep the 747 line going this next 24 months (and it looks like they can), the medium-term economic outlook for large freighters looks pretty rosy... certain politicos notwithstanding. :ugh:

That’s my view as well.It’s self-evident that anyone who reads and contributes to PPRuNe has a bit of knowledge about airlines and aircraft so it should come as no surprise that we’re all interested in the metal we fly on. But I’ve seen little evidence that the average traveller knows or is even particularly bothered what aircraft they will be boarding.

Furthermore, how many passengers actually have complete freedom over flight selection? The majority of tourists will simply be booked on a flight selected by their tour operator. Most business travellers will be subject to a company travel policy.

Personally speaking, the most important things for me when travelling are convenient flight timing, price and airline, in that order. Aircraft type is of interest to me, but there’s no way I’m going to put myself to any inconvenience or pay over the odds just to travel in the 380.

True.

But neither of those strategies is routinely adopted at Heathrow, and yet the introduction of the A380 has still not led to a reduction in capacity.