Airbus 380

Quote: terapined

Oh absolutely. Lots of time choices, that's what my guys want.

Back of the envelope calculations always says you want passenger miles per gallon of fuel. But since business seats are driving profitability, they value time choices. Hence Boeing's decision to stay away from super jumbos.

Quote: terapined

The request I get the most that I cant fill, is when they are in Europe, they cant come home after a days work. Got to stay another night then come home. India its no big deal, I take everybody home after work. BOM must be the busiest midnight airport around.

Part of the problem with Europe is you want to take advantage of the time zones to fly at night (except for ultra busy routes to London which can spare some day flights). Then you have to coordinate plane transfers to get people from point of entry to home. You end up with a limited window for flights.

I don't know about BOM, but Miami also has a lot of midnight flights. All the flights to deep South America tend to leave at midnight. There are minimal time zone changes, so they all leave around midnight to arrive in the morning. MIA airport patrons must be the greatest consumers of expresso at midnight. I don't know what they drink in Mumbai.

BOM Passengers 37,694,824
MIA Passengers 44,684,555

You can see their schedule for tonight starting at 9:40PM. American has about 10 flights around midnight.

IndiGo, India's biggest airline, has firmed up an order to buy as many as 250 Airbus A320neos, handing the European planemaker its largest-ever deal by number of aircraft. The $26.5B purchase helps extend Airbus's lead over arch-rival Boeing for the fast-growing upgraded narrow-body aircraft segment. According to website data, Boeing has secured 2,831 orders for its 737 Max, while Airbus now has over 4,100 orders for the A320neo.

Airbus's growing dominance in narrow body jets may mean that they are less willing to take a risk on a neoA380.

Boeing has deliver 581 of the 777-300ER since 2004 and has another 205 on order. Emirates is also the largest Boeing 777-300ER operator. The cancellation of the A380program may result in unprecedented orders for the 777.

Emirates
pres-order-option
104 46 20 Boeing 777-300ER
— 35 — Boeing 777-8X
— 115 — Boeing 777-9X

Sometimes I think someone ought to revive the three-engine design in jets, if only to break the monotony of the current twin engine paradigm.

Now, I do know there have been many accidents associated with the most popular 3-engine jet, the DC-10 and its various follow-on models. However, only one I recall involved the tail engine in any way. The very popular 727 also had plenty of accidents, but I don't recall any involving the center engines specifically.

Quote: Pacomartin

IndiGo, India's biggest airline

OMG Indigo is India's biggest airline.
I never ever sell them. They only sell over the internet and locally in India.
My go to airline in India is Jet Airways. Easy to book, easy to exchange
I hope Jet Airways is doing well.
Indigo is not in my system, they are too cheap.

Quote: terapined

OMG Indigo is India's biggest airline.

Indigo is not in my system, they are too cheap.

Indigo (38.4%) passed Jet Airways for total number of passengers in only 6 years of operations. You probably will book them in the future as they are expanding their fleet from 97 aircraft to over 500.

Connections via Dubai
Jet Airways Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Mangalore,
IndiGo Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Bangalore, Chennai, , Hyderabad, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram
Air India Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam, Srinagar
Air India Express Amritsar, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mangalore, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirapalli


With such a strong lead in the narrowbody market, who could blame Airbus for abandoning the super jumbo.

Quote: Pacomartin

With such a strong lead in the narrowbody market, who could blame Airbus for abandoning the super jumbo.

Will the A380 make a profit? How long will it stay in production?

Quote: Nareed

Will the A380 make a profit? How long will it stay in production?

Projections in 2000 were that they could break even selling as few as 50 planes. Those projections were wildly optimistic. They hoped to sell as many as 700.

The official books say there are 150 on order which will take about 6 years to produce on the present schedule. It is widely believed that many of the planes on order will never be delivered as the airlines keep pushing their delivery forward. Virgin Atlantic made one of the initial orders in 2000 for 6 planes and I think they have delayed delivery 5 times.

The original sales will come on the secondary market starting in October 2017 when Singapore Airlines reaches 10 years. Airbus agreed to take back the 5 A340's that SA was using to fly nonstop to the USA in exchange for buying 5 new A380s to replace the original five deliveries when their 10 year leases expire.
2017-10-15
2018-01-11
2018-03-11
2018-04-26
2018-06-28

2010-07-28 first of the Emirates leases expire

Without the promise of a neoA380 many airlines may cancel their order or try to switch them to A350s. Most analysts believe that even if all 150 deliveries were made, Airbus will have to write off tens of billions of Euros.

The cost of developing a neoA380 may make matters better, or much worse.

Quote: Pacomartin

Projections in 2000 were that they could break even selling as few as 50 planes. Those projections were wildly optimistic. They hoped to sell as many as 700.

The projections for the Concorde had them selling 200 units... I think "Projections" regarding aircraft should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Maine.

Quote:

The cost of developing a neoA380 may make matters better, or much worse.

It's too bad they can't just slap on some paint and call it "neo." I'm all for radical innovation in flight, but that seems confined largely to the military. We don't get neat stuff like supercruise engines, vertical takeoff jets, hybrid plane/helicopters or even plain old supersonic craft, which are now, by Jove, over 50 years old!!

There's incremental innovation, like adding ever more composite parts, better avionics (things like TCAS), more efficient engines, quieter engines, and lately internet access on board (BTW, make it good enough so 400+ people at a time can stream 4K video to their heart's content, and you can remove all onboard entertainment options). That's all well and good, but it makes me miss the days when new models looked different from their contemporaries. Things like the Lockheed Tri-Star, the DC-9 or the DC-10.

Besides, any design that fails "proves" it has no future. So Concorde "proved" there was no market for supersonic civilian air travel. now the A-380 will "prove2 there is no market for super-jumbo civilian aircraft...

I tell you, the hyperloop really needs to get going.

Quote: Nareed

It's too bad they can't just slap on some paint and call it "neo."

For the 777-300ER, every 1% improvement in fuel efficiency is roughly equal to 75 nm of extra range, 10 extra passengers for a load-limited flight or 2,400 lb. of cargo.
The 777-300ER is improved by 3.6% compared with pre-service predictions at the start of the program in 2003.

Basically the future standoff will come down to whether or not you can fill a high percentage of a 400 seat aircraft. If not, then it is safer to go with the Airbus model.



Emirates has already ordered over a 100 of the B777-9X. If there is no neoA380, then they will probably order more B777-9X rather than the A350-1000 or more of the current A380s.


A lot of these conclusions are speculative.

Emirates had ordered 58 A380s before their first delivery on 28 July 2008. On 16 July 2008, Dubai Airport unveiled the first of two specially-built gates capable of handling the aircraft (costing $10 million) Five more A380-capable gates were opened at concourse B on 14 October 2008. The airport authority spent $3.2 billion for their concourse which opened for operations on January 2, 2013 and is the world's first A380 purpose built facility (18 gates handle the A380) and also features the world’s first multi-level boarding for first and business class passengers directly from the respective lounges. Emirates increased their orders from 58 to 140 after deliveries began. Right now they have received 65 planes.

Emirates will begin retiring A380's in only 4 years, and they are selling tens of billions of dollars in A380 tickets, many to first and business class passengers who want the luxury of an upper class deck. They spent a lot of money on infrastructure, and they may break down and order more of the current version.

However, there official position is no more orders of the current version. If the A380 is not substantially improved (I think they want a 15% improvement in fuel efficiency) or they are going with a different model. As they seem to have no concerns about larger capacity, that would seem to be the new Boeing 777 over the Airbus A350-1000. Besides it is a greater threat to Airbus if they think they will lose all Emirates business.

Quote: Nareed

I tell you, the hyperloop really needs to get going.

LAX-SFO 338 miles
MTY-SAT 278 miles

The LA to San Francisco passenger-only version at US$6 billion, Paralleling the Interstate 5 corridor for most of its length (35 minutes to traverse the 354-mile route at an average speed of around 600 mph, with a top speed of 760 mph. In comparison current planes from LAX to SFO are scheduled for 80-84 minutes.

While at first glance the transborder Monterrey to San Antonio route is a minor route in comparison to LA to San Francisco, it has a lot of arguments for it. By going through customs before boarding the train, the trip time is much faster than just comparing it to a normal plane ride or an overland route. There are no intermediate cities of importance to lobby for stops or to bring lawsuits. The land can be purchased with a lot less difficulty.

But most importantly it would get a hyperloop built, which will encourage the construction of another one.