I disagree with your analysis that the A380 will be a big success. Regardless of what some think, you need a much bigger load to break even on the A380 as compared to the 747. Thus, I think that this airplane, while custom-made for certain destinations (LGW/LHR-JFK/EWR/IAD/LAX/MIA/ORD/NRT/SYD/HKG, etc), it is not good for most. When you must rely on getting...say 450 people on a plane as opposed to...say 300...that's a big difference. The 777, 747, 7E7...and for that matter...the A330-340 can do this just as well with a lower passenger capacity. You may say: What about casinos, cabins, shopping that will be on the A380? HUH? Are you kidding? Maybe Emirates or Virgin will put those on their planes, but not much. When they have to fill that plane up to capacity, and they can have a crappy Duty-Free shop or another 50 seats...guess what will win out in the end? Those planes will be fitted to capacity with seats, which will mean 45-minute loading and unloading, and monstrously long waits for drinks, meals, etc.

Overall, I think that they A380 will just break even. I just hope that the new crew on Smith Street keeps Gordo's philosophy of Boeing jets only. Thoughts?

If I recall correctly, the only airlines that serves IAH and are on the list of purchasers of the 380 are Emirates, Air France, and Lufthansa. Not sure that any of these would make any sense since they all serve IAH only 1x day (as I recall) with either a 777 or a 747.

Don't remember if Virgin, Korean, or Singapore fly out of IAH.

Airbus always had an unfair advantage over Boeing because of the overt and covert subsidies it receives from the European nations that own interest in it. Although Airbus tries to make a case that Boeing is also subsidized by the US government to some degree (if they want to count sales of military products), it would be very naive to think that Airbus is not able to undercut Boeing on price and financing because of its government underwriting.

Although it would violate at least the spirit of the existing trade treaties to coerce US carriers, directly or indirectly, to focus their purchases on Boeing exclusively (and offer tax breaks to offset the price difference), I think the best arsenal against Airbus and the 380 are the airports themselves.

No one can say "don't buy this aircraft" without touching off a trade war, but the major US hub airports like JFK, LAX, ORD, MIA, etc. can simply state "we are not upgrading our facilities to service this aircraft, and no landing permits will be issued for this aircraft unless flying cargo only and taxiing to a cargo processing facility". In one shot, you have made the purchasing decision alot more difficult for those international (and possibly domestic) carriers considering an order - and these airports are so busy with capacity demand outstripping supply, it's unlikely any carrier like BA or SQ will storm off and cut service to vital markets like these.

The FAA does not have the authority to require airports to service (outside of emergencies) any particular aircraft type, so the federal gov. can just take a hands-off approach and say 'it's not up to us' if the European Union complains about a covert tariff.

I find Airbus' analysis of the global passenger aviation market to be flawed - their guesstimate that passengers and airlines are best served by a cookiecutter solution of A380s sending huge numbers of passengers between major global hubs to be sent off to A320s and 319s for distribution to secondary and tertiary markets is not the direction most airlines or passengers want to go. The Boeing model of flexible, comfortable, mixed-range aircraft based on the 777 and 787, with secondary distribution to 737s and a focus on point-to-point service between markets with ideal O+D traffic loads is the better option. I will concede that the 380 would make a good all-cargo or mixed-cargo/pax plane.

No Emirates, Virgin, KAL, Singapore at IAH. But we do have Pakistan International!

I thought that I saw an Emirates airplane there once but I can't remember...too many airports. It's now being served by Emirates with a CO codeshare to LGW.

Here's the skinny straight from the horse's mouth:

http://iah.houstonairportsystem.org/airlines/

I bet that the only time that we will see the A380 is with Fedex or UPS' livery.

Just to add just because airline has high frequncy long hauls doesn't mean they will want to consolidate into A380 fewer flights. One of the arguments for the 787 is actually the opposite: people would rather have more convinence in the form of more flights at varying time of day. Most of us would rather have more flights to choose from that better meet scheduling and work requirements.

So maybe if somone flying a 777/747 once each day felt they could sell even more tickets and justify 380 it would happen.

I do wonder if anyone would consider these on shorter hauls say transcons. How about those early evenning transcons on Fridays and Sundays out of EWR???

The material the aircraft is built on and the structure of the airplane contributes to the smoothness of the flight. The Airbus jets are made from a lighter weight material and the wings are less rigid than the 777, which has a tendency to "enhance" an already bumpy ride.

if you build it they will come....... maybe

SEA and ATL has already announced landing the A380 in anything other than an emergency would require major construction. runways would need widening and terminals would need upgrades to load and unload the aircraft. they are not willing to do it. even if they did make neccessary changes, airports might need to hold back other airport traffic to let the monster taxi in.

the A380 although not much longer than the 747 it has a 261-foot wingspan. that's 50 feet wider than the 747 and wider than many runways and taxiways were built for. this airplane can weigh 30 percent more than the biggest 747. the weight alone could damage runways and collapse tunnels. let's not discuss terminal access.

and 550 pax... forget it. this plane will hold 800+ passengers, and that's how many they will cram in. how many support people would be needed for this thing to load. these are my guesses... (16) flight attendants, (6) gate personell, (10) baggage handlers, (4) maintenance, (4) ground, and (8) custodial crews. what do all these employees do for hours while they wait for the next one to land.

i think if there was a big demand for giant airplanes boeing would have sold more 747's. for my money (and sanity) i want to get in the aircraft in my city and get out in the destination city. load and unload in as little time as possible. (imagine waiting for your luggage around a carousel with 800 other people) skip the hub and spoke thing,

i don't think most airports will spend millions of dollars for a couple of flights a day. there isn't enough demand right now to justify the cost and effort to rebuild. time will tell, but bigger isn't always better.

ps - they'll make great freighters.

There are a lot of advantages of the new plane, as several disadvantages, many have not been yet mentioned. It is probably significantly more fuel efficient than a 747 would be if scaled. I don't have the specs on it but it's probably not much more to operate. Since the whole thing is financed anyway, it may not cost much more in the long run. I agree that it will be crammed full of people - probably in the Asian market. It will also make for an EXCELLENT cargo plane.

One of the biggest disadvantages is in the unloading of this supersized tube. The problem is that you're dumping hundreds more people at one time through the facilities - customs and immigration and baggage handling. This means that they need to have more people on staff at once, versus having a lower number of workers handling two flights of a smaller plane.

When the airports are complaining, refusing to fit the facilities to the aircraft, this is just stupid bureaucracy. They're going to say "You have to pay for it," when we all know that the airlines ALREADY pay for it. The airlines' customers have to pay facility charges when they fly - AND RENT CARS. And they bring business to that town, which of course gets taxed.

That being said, I think the answer for Continental is to get more 777's and 738's and build out that way. Dump the old 737's and run a shiny new fleet with fuel efficient planes and continuous service on the large and mid markets. The massive planes will only congest their system.

Well, actually the discussion about subsies is as old as Airbus and simply ridiculous�.
Boeing receives a huge amount of government aid, not to mention from the State of Washington or when they sell military aircraft at funny prices, but this discussion is not about subsidies�.

What people tend to underestimate is that Boeing is developing an aircraft for a market that does not even exist, what is point to point ?? Does CO fly Austin, TX-Nuremberg ??

Probadly not, there are no point to point markets, not TATL and not TPAC. Since some years now Lufthansa is flying a so called point to point BBJ route, from DUS to both EWR and ORD and since a couple of months they do the same ex MUC and Swiss is doing the same now as well , all routes are offered on a BBJ or ABJ und have an all C class cabin and it is said you need a load of 50-55 % to break even�

What people underestimate is, that it is working, yes but why.?

On one side of the pond, we have DUS , home of the biggest fair in Germany, home of 25 % of the DAX 100 companies and a legitimate * Alliance minihub, on the other side we are talking about New York City and Chicago, both huge cities and important aviation hubs�so yes hub to point or call hub to spoke is working and that could be a niche for a 787, but if the demand is too high, a 747 or 380 is simply much much cheaper to operate, the A 380 will fly approximately 40-80 % more pax, but the operation only rise by about 20 % , easy calculation�
But there are certainly other players with a slightly different business concept, for example Continental, relying on intercontinental expansion, but aware of their limits and utilising smaller aircraft and CO would probably be better off with a 787 instead of a 752 on those thin TATL routes, but is it point to point ?? No, simple and easy, they need a hub to fill those flights, cause BDL-LIS would not work, cause there is no bub to feed.

So what is Boeing doing, they are actually developing an aircraft which is a modern version of a 762 or 763 in a bigger version and Airbus will build the 330-500/600 newer and likely more efficient aircraft, but designed for an already existing market and both will be successful selling their aircrafts, so there will be always be demand for a big bird on routes, but also for a smaller bird later on in the day and earlier, so it also should work out.

The problem I fear is, that US hub and spoke airlines ( or call them legacy carriers ) have to show that it is a working business model. So far they have lost much more money then they have earned and without huge government aids, all legacy would have been long gone, sad but simple fact�

But back to the A 380 discussion,if there is no demand for pax alone, we will see Combi aircrafts, right now all successful intercontinental airlines on this planet use Combi aircrafts and rely more and more on Cargo, despite the price drops in the last months and years�

And actually KLM`s daily IAH flight is on a 744 Combi, same with LAX or ORD, so the 380 should be a huge success as an all pax plane, Combi and Cargo plane.

And airports will desperately have to adjust to the bigger bird, cause it is by far the easiest way to make money, one big plane and a lot of pax, especially at the most congested places like ORD, NRT or FRA�

KLM is already introducing a non manned gate solution concept, it is already used at two gates at Schiphol and will be presented at the Passenger Terminal Expo next week in Cologne, so the number of employees needed to operate a gate will also be reduced massively in the near future, probadly comparable with the number of agents needed years ago and today with e tickets and e check in procedures in place, so it will get smoother and faster�

The subsidy argument is a valid one. While a case could be made that both companies receive subsidies from government, Boeing is certainly not a government owned or controlled company - it is a private enterprise, shareholder owned business that cannot compete fairly against a company that is a de facto 'nationalized' aircraft manufacturer when the resources of Airbus' "owners" can be called upon to underwrite price cuts and sweetheart financing deals - a luxury that Boeing does not share.

Boeing's 787 market certainly does exist. No one is suggesting point-to-point service between Austin and Nuremberg...that is not a valid comparison. We are talking about an aircraft that can be leveraged to fill a variety of roles the 380 can never do. The 787 can be used for hub-hub ops or select point-point - it's all upto the purchasing carrier how to leverage this aircraft, which is it's main selling point...versatility. It replaces the 757 and 767 from a capacity and range standpoint, and can offer a similar range (depending on model) to backfill the 777 when demand does not warrant a 300 seat aircraft.

Being so versatile permits the customer to explore those 'routes that do not exist'...to open up new point to point markets with supporting O+D traffic demand while providing economical, flexible service for existing routes.

This is the right aircraft choice for CO, and I have no doubt that they are looking at a 787 acquisition for the future when the market brightens up abit.

The only US airports that will see passenger A380 service in the near future are New York City/JFK, Newark, LAX, Miami, and San Francisco.

Check out the boyd consulting site for an interesting take on the 787 vs. 380 battle...including the first public opt-out from a major airport - Atlanta


scroll down about half way

Very interesting website, Thanks for the link !! ^

However a typical consulting page...

There is no doubt that Boeing or Airbus will sell more 787 or A 330-500/600 than A 380, I think Boeing has sold 1200+ B 747 in 30+ years and how many 737 ? More than 3000 or 3500 ?!

My problem is that the thing did not fly so far, so all the speculation about savings is speculation at this point, cause all the talk about light materials and super efficient enigines is not realistic, cause nobody knows if these engines are available and all suppliers in the sector had huge problems creating a working engine for the 777 and all engines were always ( since the the first day of jet enigines ) thirsty, and always needed more fuel than expected...
BTW, same problem for the A 380, it became heavier than expected and it did not fly and nobody knows exactly how high the operating costs are and in this industry one % point or two can make a huge difference...

That is where the story gets irrelevant, we are not taking about selling by the mass, we are talking about making money, which is a huge US legacy carrier problem and ( IMO ) the reason why they could not order any 787 so far, also pointed out by some..
It would be the perfect airplane for basically all US legacy carriers, because all serve international routes on smaller aircraft, NW and UA TPAC excluded...

So as long as both are making money without unfair subsidaries everybody is happy...

As for ATL, probably a smart decision, they will eventually upgrade their facilities ( which they have to do anyway, once a really nice megaport, it has become really crappy ) when AF tells them to be ready for an A 380, but on the other hand they are facing a huge problem...

On the other hand, Airbus is already in intensive talks with the administrations around the globe to lower the requirements for the run and taxiways from 60 metres down to 45-50 metres, which is the standard anyway, so no big problem there...

Since DL was able to lose $ 2.2 billion in three months ATL could likely become an airport, where 60 % of the concourses will simply not be used anymore, probably the biggest ghost airport on this planet....

Once again, Thanks for the link !