I dont get the A380 name..... A360 made much more sense to me (full circle around the globe and all that)...???

Gaucho:
I think they are trying to keep the highest number for their flagship. It'd look silly if in two years they develop a 50 seater and they have to call it A360 when the big guy is called A350. This will be the flagship perhaps for as long as 40 years (look at how long the 747 has maintained its leadership position).

But the 747, since it was developed, has been followed by many smaller aircraft with " larger numbers": 757, 767 and 777. Don't make sense to me.

Airbus is smarter: they are giving themselves some leeway in developing up to 3 new classes of aircraft (350-360-370) and still have the 380 remain the biggest guy both in name and number of passengers.

Just a guess.

As much as I would like to take credit for guessing that they'd call it the A380, somebody else on that board came up with the idea before I did. I simply said that I liked the name based on their reasoning.

On the issue of casinos, gyms, etc. on board, don't count on it. As someone else on this board pointed out, what makes the airlines money are seats. Think about this, how many square feet would even a very small gym take up? Maybe 300 or 400. And how many coach seats could they squeeze in those 300 or 400 square feet? Probably 30? 40? more. If each coach seat earns the airline $500 on average (a low-ball guess on my part), that means they're missing out on $15,000 to $50,000 of revenue per flight. What are they going to charge people to use this gym? $1000 a pop? I doubt it. Even casinos wouldn't make money because they still take up a lot of space and people won't be willing to lose more than a couple hundred dollars on average per flight. If anybody thinks that the A380 is going to have anything other than seats (and maybe a small lounge for the first or business section), they are dreaming.

Old folks (and kids with long memories) will recall that the original 747s were to have pubs or lounges or clubs or gyms or beds in the upstairs -- the cocktail party in the sky. But fairly quickly the buyers converted the upper deck into seats.

Look for the rosy predictions for A380 to go the same way -- seats, seats, and more seats.

I was able to walk into a full size mock-up of the A380. Yes, Y will be seats, seats and more seats! But F! Real suites for one to four pax, with beds AND seats. I saw an configuration in F in which i would love to fly 15+ hours to Australia!

God help us if this prediction comes true!

The whole idea of a Casino doesnt make sense to me, specially if you think that video gambling is already available and can still provide revenue (ok, its not as flashy as the real thing, but it still brings in the $$).


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Gaucho100K

I guess that even with all the amenities offered on the A380, most or maybe all of those special things like lounges, showers, casinos, bars etc. will only be available to first/business class passengers. (and airlines would increase such fares)

They may even try to decrease the legroom for economy class and squeeze in more seats.

I thought I might just point out a few things...

1. The A380 is not something so much bigger than the 747-400 that it has to be considered a whole new league. Sure, the plane has an upper deck that extends right to the tail, but it's still 10 abreast (same as 747). For example, it's only 2.4m longer than a 747-400. My point: It's not exactly a cruise ship... just yet.

2. Although it's true that some new facilities are required, it will only service the world's busiest gateways so maybe it's about 20 airports which has to go under modification.

3. It has a larger seating capacity. And what's so bad about that? Some routes which are experiencing extraordinary demand throughout the year will welcome the A380. Just ask someone who couldn't get from (say) Tokyo to LA because all the planes were full. Will he mind sitting with 500 other people if it's still going to get him there? I'm sure he won't. Even if he has to wait for an hour for his checked bags in LAX

4. As someone has already pointed out, a larger capacity on each aircraft will free up what little precious landing slots each airline gets from the airport. This reduces the frequency to the major hubs, but also means more landing slots freed up for the airlines which can actually enable them to serve destinations which they would otherwise have been unable to due to slots restrictions.

IMO all this is exactly what people would have said about the 747 (sorry, I wasn't even born when the project was conceived ) and look at what success it has been. Demand for travel will no doubt rise, not fall. Whether this turns out to be a success remains to be seen over time, but count me as one of the optimists...

No, my prediction for this plane is that

1. it may never be completed
2. if it is, it will bankrupt Airbus

The 747 was planned during the 1960s when air travel was increasing at an unprecedented rate. Boeing had orders for almost 200 of them before a single plane had been delivered.

A bad recession hit just when the first planes were delivered. Planes were flying practically empty. Airlines in some cases forfeited their deposits rather than take delivery. Boeing had massive layoffs and skittered a hair's breadth away from bankruptcy.

Look what happened a few years later in the classic tri-jet fight between Lockheed and Douglas. Lockheed had to get a US government bail-out. Douglas was injured catastrophically. Nobody made a dime.

Boeing is going to eat Airbus's lunch with the stretch 747 and there is no way that Airbus is going to survive this debacle without a bail-out (more subsidies). The airlines that are buying this airplane are nuts.

If routes like JFK-NRT or LAX-NRT are so full, then they can put more planes on them.

Slots full? Not enough room in the sky to fly all the 747s needed? Nonsense. Advances in ATC including GPS are going to increase airport capacity dramatically, just as these big behemoths are being delivered.

But with these huge planes that can only fly between certain airports, airlines have no flexibility to change routes, move equipment around to meet changing demand, etc.

I wouldn't say so. If the launch discounts, said to be up to 30%, are true, there is some financial sense to order the A3XX at a slight premium to the 747-400s. A A3XX for US$175mm in 5 years+ time compared to nearly that for a 747-400 today makes a A3XX cheap for 500+ pax capacity. The capital cost per seat is quite a lot lower.

Unless for some inexplicable reason, Dubya binds the U.S. (and the rest of the world) to the Treaty of Kyoto which I would predict would make almost all forms of travel much more expensive. Most would say he won't but it was his father's agreement that commited the U.S. to the general principle in the first place.

How would Airbus/the airlines get airports to expand to accomodate this leviathan? Would airport authorities willingly do this?

Yonatan

They've already started. Look at SFO's new International Terminal, for example.

I don't mean to be morbid, but how do you think would the public handle a crash of this magnitude? Could we really handle the news of 550 plus fatalities in a single crash? I'm sure the makers of this SuperJumbo jet have considered this factor. But obviously, potential revenue won.