Boeing to halt development of 747X!
 

I just read a story on the aol finacial pages that Boeing has decided to halt development of the super-jumbo 747x in favor of a concordesque plane described as a mid-sized (250 pax), delta-winged aircraft that would fly just below the sound barrier cutting some 90 min. off Trans pacific flights.

Boeing has been unable to take any orders for the 747x as apposed to the Airbus super-jumbo which has over 60 orders.

Sorry for the paraphrase, I have no idea how to link to this story. Doc?

Boeing to shelve superjumbo

Cutting down flight time is more attractive to me than being on a plan with 600 other people.

See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/002125.html

See also:

GENERAL TRAVEL FORUM

Djlawman

Absolutely. http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/concept/photo.html

I only hope this new Boeing plane will be real before I am too old to fly or...

I've seen a picture similar to this more than 12 years ago, painted with the NW livery. I was really young at the time (say, in the single digits), so I don't remember the details of the article.

Since this new plane is a long-range, perhaps it'll compete with Airbus in terms of speed, which business travellers would perhaps appreciate.

- Pat

Remember the story of the Concorde and the 747. The Concorde was supposed to be the superior aircraft because it offered shorter travel times which was supposed to appeal more to business travelers. We saw what happened to Concorde orders.

Boeing plugged on with the 747 making the seat mile cost cheaper and more profitable than the Concorde. The 747 is one of the most abundant airframes in the sky today.

It seems like Airbus might find their 747 in the A3XX.

I'd really hate to see Airbus taking a more dominant role. I find Airbus aircraft so uncomfortable.

[This message has been edited by SFOJFK (edited 03-30-2001).]

I would fly a faster plane in the 767 or 777 layout. I have no interest in flying the Airbus boxcar or cattlecar.

Boeing is doing the smartest thing possible and I am ready to bet, that those Asian airlines will race to get the faster smaller plane before the big warehouses. Just watch the Airbus orders slow down or evaporate in the exhaust of the Delta wing.

Given the price of concorde tickets, supersonic travel is still the perogative of the rich (or business traveller with v good travel policy).

Concorde failed for 2 reasons
- fuel costs; remember the oil price hikes of the early 70's
- Noise; or at least that was the initial reason it was not given for not allowing landing rights in USA (-although I prefer to beleive there was an element of "Not invented Here" syndrome http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif ). When Flying, cincorde flys directly over my house approx 10 minutes after take off and yes, it is very loud

I do not see any technical advances that significantly reduce noise levels of a supersonic craft, and fuel costs are still volatile. Therefore I think that Boeing are taking a BIG RISK here & that airbus will win out unles the running costs are low enough for the airlines to be able to offer a sensibly priced economy seat.


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Chris Elvin

weasel, Did you miss the point that this is a subsonic or Mach .95 Delta wing plane based on the 767 layout? It is NOT a SUPERsonic aircraft!

[This message has been edited by ROADRUNNER (edited 03-30-2001).]

Just wondering, how big of a deal 90 mins off a 11 - 16 hours transpac flight are. (?)
By comparision, I was lucky to fly the Concorde between Paris and Washington once. Considerable time saving: 5 hours on a 8 1/2 hour flight. Am I missing someting?

I could forsee the beancounters at the airlines CFO office really warming up to the A-380, once true operating costs/seatmile$ are available.

I'll take the 90 minute transpacific savings or whatever on a transcontinental. The 767 layout would be a bonus!

The thing that hurt the Concorde most was that it created a sonic boom, thus precluding it from flying supersonically over land. Because the 20XX is subsonic, it won't suffer that problem. And because it will be flying the same distance in less time, presumably it will use less fuel. Of course, that assumes that it is as fuel efficient on a per/mile basis as a 767/777/A340/A380. The direction of the airline industry seems to be going more toward point-to-point long distance service. See, for example, BA's new nonstop from San Diego to London. You couldn't support an A380 or a 747 on that flight. But because you can support the seats on a 777/767 on that flight, you could use the 20XX for that route too.

And the San Diego airport is my home port. Schedule it and I will fly! Sure wish we had Transpacific flights out of here.

not to diverge too much, but what plane does BA fly to SAN? That airport doesn't look big enough to serve a 747 or even 777, and I didn't know the 767 had the range. The BA plane must look huge and out of place compared to all the MDs, 727s, etc. in SAN.

I initially thought that if this was available I too would take it. But my current flying habits suggest otherwise.

For example, door-to-door it takes me 30 minutes to BHX (Birmingham UK)check-in, and 90 minutes to Heathrow. Continental (I think) fly BHX-JFK, but I choose to drive to Heathrow for the BA Club beds, points, miles & service (in that order). All things being equal I would fly from BHX, but they seldom are. If other airlines fly the "sonic-jet" LHR-New York and BA put on a BHX-New York 757/767 (or Airbus equivelent), then I would probably still fly BA, as the door-to-door time would be similar. So the new boeing jet would need to be much, much faster for me. And then of course if the slower aircraft offered even more room, a walk-up bar, etc., I would probably still choose the slower flight. Hey, I like flying! If I've got good service and unless the door-to-door saving is more than say, 3 hours or 30% (which ever is less) of total journey time, I'm not that bothered. How many of you would forsake a 3hr flight for a 4hr flight if the latter was your preferred airline? And don't forget we business travellers are the main target consumer!

For me, this isn't a question of Boeing vs. Airbus, its about a trade-off between service and convienience. (I don't pick up the bill for my biz travel). So if the A380 can offer more "service" (e.g. room or amenities) due to lower cost per passanger/mile against a slightly quicker Boeing (Door-to-Door), then the Boeing has a tough fight.

Robert.

[This message has been edited by bulkhead (edited 03-30-2001).]

Yes BA does fly in a 747 to San Diego. The only one! But it stops in Phoenix to unload as much weight as possible and stops there on the way back. I hear it is quite a sight to watch go over the parking structures just before touch down. Those limey pilots must have nerves of steel. Cool as a cucumber!

I think BA is planning a 777 for the SAN to London non-stop. They are making us an international destination with their one flight.

What's worse is SJC that is getting 2 more AA intl flights. They already had the NRT daily nonstop on a 777. Now, they're adding a daily nonstop TPE and CDG on a 777 and 767. They can only fit the large bodies on one gate A15.

I wonder how it's going to work. The ramp isn't big enough for those planes. I think they staggered the flights some. The NRT leaves around noon. the TPE leaves at 2 and the CDG leaves in the evening. The worst part is that Customs and Integration are still in a trailer at another end of the airport not connected to any terminal.

SJC has two parallel runways, but only one is usable. They're in the middle of extending the other one, so it's out of use. I don't know how they plan to handle more traffic. SJC skies are always busy.

I don't think SAN gets as much traffic, but the heavies look really out of place here. The NRT takeoff uses the ENTIRE runway!!!! If it screwed up takeoff, you would see a 777 on US 101 or I-880. I'd rather see these flights out of SFO.

The other advantage that I see with the new Boeing aircraft is that you can still use the old gates for these things, but with the Airbus 380 i don't know if you can use the gates you have, you might have to rebuild a terminal just to hold 600 people!

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Al

I don't really understand, why the A380 should be compared in any way to the XXX Boeing.
These aircrafts have completely different markets, different technical specifications,
different usage.

The interesting question is :
"Who is going to make more money, and lead the market, in 10-15 years ?"
- Airbus with a big plane on top of the series
- Boeing with a faster plane.

There is a market for both planes. But the problem is not to build a good plane, the problem is to find (enough) carriers to buy it.

Actually, Airbus has a project and clients, Boeing has a new project and still no client for it.

Boeing did lead the market in the 70s and 80s, now Airbus sells more planes.

Dear American friends, you must accept this new reality http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Actually, fwiw, Airbus sold more planes in one year, 1999 I believe. Boeing has delivered more planes in all years, and sold more again last year.

Airliners.net is full of people arguing the Airbus/Boeing religious wars. We don't really need that here, do we?

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"Service" should be a noun, not a verb.

<OMNI>
The British Airways flight into San Diego used to be a 747-400 that flew LGW-PHX-SAN and return. Since the flight had very little fuel in white into and out of SAN, it wasn't much a problem. BA wanted to make the flight nonstop, but because of the runway length and terrain obstructions around the airport, a 747-400 wasn't possible. Just last week they made the flight nonstop with a 777-200 that has the range and capability. The PHX-LGW nonstop also went to a 777-200.
</OMNI>

-> LexPassenger

The title of this thread is: "Boeing to halt development of 747X"

You can read in this thread comments about this information.

No sign of religious war at all here, unless it's not "allowed" to think/say that Boeing might have problems to sell it's future aircraft.

I have been in Balboa Park in San Diego when the BA 747-400 has gone overhead.

It's almost comical to see a Southwest 737, then an American Super80 and then this huge beast lumbers in low right after them!

Also my favorite: I used to be the helicopter video engineer for channel 10 here. We are flying at 1000 ft. and the tower calls us to ask if we have spotted the BA 747 at 5000 ft. Believe me we had already spotted it!

drewman

The Airbus A380 will be cheaper to operate per paying passenger than any sonic aircraft.

In general, the flying public wants cheap air travel more than they are willing to pay a premium for faster air travel.

Just look around -- most of us get excited if we can save $10 or $20 on a ticket. Some of us will take flights with extra connecting cities just to get a few hundred more frequent flyer points. We all want to get their cheaper more than we want to get there faster (unless your flying on the company's dime).

Do you think we're gonna pay $500 for a ticket when we can fly the same trip for $250? (These numbers are purely wild speculation on my part)

Maybe after we get used it, and come to expect the faster speed. But I'll bet Boeing is going to struggle harder than they ever have before to get this one into profitability. That is, if the plane ever even sees the light of day.

The market for the Boeing Delta -

What people miss is that there is a tremendous market for the non-stop long hop. What is happening is simple: countries which used to be very infrequent destinations are now becoming important parts of business. In 1975 if you went to India, you were in films, agriculture or spirituality. Now a large fraction of the software in the world is written in India, and more is scheduled to be written there in the next decade to cut programmer costs. India is approximately 7000 miles from New York.


Djakarta is example, as Indonesia continues to surge as a low labor cost center for manufacturing, along with Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, these are 9000 mile hops from US business centers.

The upshot here is that the savings on this plane could be more significant than you might think in terms of feul costs, it has efficent engines, and cruises higher with less turbulence, which means better tail winds, the ability to fly east, rather than west, for more routes, picking up the wind advantage, and a superior ride even in coach.

United and American are moving to a "you will fly in coach and like it" pricing strategy, they will be able to sell premium seats to the business traveller with the new Delta Wing.

Right now NY to HK is about the limit of nonstop flight, there is a powerful market urge for a NY to anywhere plane, it saves, not 90 minutes, but the hours in the terminal - so a net savings of about 4 hours, for relatively much the same feul cost.


the A3XX is an extension of the current business model, the DeltaFlyer from Boeing is, potentially, the 727 of a new model.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.