what was wrong with the A380?
Feb 21, 2019, 7:52 am
#31
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Feb 22, 2019, 1:41 am
#32
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Feb 22, 2019, 12:05 pm
#33
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Easy. The A380 has extremely limited utility. There are only a handful of airlines for which it made sense (EK, CX, SQ), and only about a dozen superhub airports in the world where it made sense. 20 years ago Airbus placed a big, disastrous bet that superhub-to-superhub traffic would explode by now, and require many hundreds of VLAs, operated by dozens of airlines, to overcome slot capacity limits.
Simultaneously Boeing placed an entirely different bet with the 787, namely that the real growth would be in Tier I-to-Tier II city pairs over long distances, e.g. AUS-LHR or EWR-GLA.
Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong. The A380 is not suited for Tier II markets; it's too big. (Even Emirates came to see this in the last few years and backed out of its last tranche of A380 orders, killing the program.) Some airlines that were considered natural operators like CX said no, and most others took only a token smattering (BA, AF, QF). Even the megacarriers are voting for long-leg nonstop services between superhubs and Tier II markets, eg. LHR-PER, which the A380 cannot perform, and even it could, would never fly full.
The US airlines learned from the 747 experience the dreadful cost of imposing an oversized aircraft on secondary markets. Only UA kept their 747s around through the 21st century. AA parked the last of theirs in the 1980s, and DL, EA, National, etc. got rid of their 747s quickly in the '70s. 747 costs helped kill Pan Am. With those cautionary lessons in mind, no US operator was ever a candidate for the A380.
Some A380s have already been retired and there is no used / secondary market for them.
Airbus only sold 30% of the aircraft it needed to in order for the A380 program to turn a profit. Its insistence on taking the plane to market on the basis of such faulty / illusory market forecasts will be the basis of horrifying business school case studies for years to come.
Simultaneously Boeing placed an entirely different bet with the 787, namely that the real growth would be in Tier I-to-Tier II city pairs over long distances, e.g. AUS-LHR or EWR-GLA.
Boeing was right and Airbus was wrong. The A380 is not suited for Tier II markets; it's too big. (Even Emirates came to see this in the last few years and backed out of its last tranche of A380 orders, killing the program.) Some airlines that were considered natural operators like CX said no, and most others took only a token smattering (BA, AF, QF). Even the megacarriers are voting for long-leg nonstop services between superhubs and Tier II markets, eg. LHR-PER, which the A380 cannot perform, and even it could, would never fly full.
The US airlines learned from the 747 experience the dreadful cost of imposing an oversized aircraft on secondary markets. Only UA kept their 747s around through the 21st century. AA parked the last of theirs in the 1980s, and DL, EA, National, etc. got rid of their 747s quickly in the '70s. 747 costs helped kill Pan Am. With those cautionary lessons in mind, no US operator was ever a candidate for the A380.
Some A380s have already been retired and there is no used / secondary market for them.
Airbus only sold 30% of the aircraft it needed to in order for the A380 program to turn a profit. Its insistence on taking the plane to market on the basis of such faulty / illusory market forecasts will be the basis of horrifying business school case studies for years to come.
PMNW had 747-200 and 747-400, both of which were fitted with updated seats, etc. After the merger, DL kept the 747-400 until a couple years ago and again reconfigured the seats (to make the upper deck 1-1 with genuine flat beds for business class).
I suspect that part of the problem some carriers (such as AF and LH) have had with the A380s is passenger acceptance in that many travelers have always been skeptical of the abilities of ground staff, airports, and customs/immigration officials to handle so many passengers at once, plus many of the A380s flying around have out of date business class seats (such as those slanty things rather than genuine flat beds), so that business travelers who are aware of this try to book other aircraft types or other carriers. If they can't sell the premium cabins at high prices, the economics won't work even on routes which would seem to need the A380's passenger capacity.
I suspect that part of the problem some carriers (such as AF and LH) have had with the A380s is passenger acceptance in that many travelers have always been skeptical of the abilities of ground staff, airports, and customs/immigration officials to handle so many passengers at once, plus many of the A380s flying around have out of date business class seats (such as those slanty things rather than genuine flat beds), so that business travelers who are aware of this try to book other aircraft types or other carriers. If they can't sell the premium cabins at high prices, the economics won't work even on routes which would seem to need the A380's passenger capacity.
Feb 22, 2019, 2:45 pm
#34
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... passenger acceptance in that many travelers have always been skeptical of the abilities of ground staff, airports, and customs/immigration officials to handle so many passengers at once ...
... out of date business class seats ... so that business travelers who are aware of this try to book other aircraft types or other carriers. If they can't sell the premium cabins at high prices, the economics won't work even on routes which would seem to need the A380's passenger capacity.
... out of date business class seats ... so that business travelers who are aware of this try to book other aircraft types or other carriers. If they can't sell the premium cabins at high prices, the economics won't work even on routes which would seem to need the A380's passenger capacity.
(1) the infrastructure and staffing issues, both landside and airside, are far less likely to impact premium cabin travelers, but the value of inflight accommodations/amenities -- particularly on long-haul flights -- is far more significant to them ... and this is probably even more true for those whose travel is subject to some cost constraints
(2) there are probably ~5x as many coach/economy passengers as premium cabin passengers on an A380, and I suspect most of them are far more likely to buy tickets on price alone
as I stated in Post #2 upthread, half an hour after OP asked the initial question:
Feb 24, 2019, 10:06 am
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Feb 24, 2019, 9:35 pm
#36
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The plane looks horrible but it is a pleasure to climb the stairs and enjoy a long haul flight on the second deck. It's smoother than any other airplane I've flown on and extremely quiet. I seek them out when I get the chance, which looks like it'll be happening less and less in the future.
Feb 24, 2019, 10:09 pm
#37
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No idea.
I think there must be a few, and even in DXB with Emirates you can find yourself at a non A380 gate or even using stairs at a remote stand. I believe there are some (maybe Riyadh or Jeddah) where they routinely use stairs, but that info could be out of date.
I think there must be a few, and even in DXB with Emirates you can find yourself at a non A380 gate or even using stairs at a remote stand. I believe there are some (maybe Riyadh or Jeddah) where they routinely use stairs, but that info could be out of date.
Feb 25, 2019, 6:33 am
#38
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Feb 25, 2019, 11:06 am
#39
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IIRC, the original business case for the superjumbo relied a lot on slot-restricted airports. The demand curve into certain max-capacity airports would drive yields high enough that a big expensive four-holer still made sense to operate. Since there are a couple hundred A380s in the air, and they will be with us for decades to come, perhaps they will continue to be useful on those select routes. Same for the 744 and 748...
Feb 25, 2019, 1:49 pm
#40
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Planes only work as sellable commodities if the buyer can operate it in the black. Margins are generally thin in aviation, but at the very least the cost of operating and maintaining the plane has to be less than the profit it generates.
The trick in the world of airlines is volume. More butts in seats=more money. The idea was the the A380 had a large volume potential and that was a selling point for airlines with longhaul, high capacity routes. They may have thought they could even drop a few flights and move that volume into a single A380 flight. But there were other costs..it required more fuel, probably incurred bigger airport fees, required special ground ops and gates with enough space, had more staffing requirements, took on weight with more of everything from food to blankets to inflight magazines and worst of all, was limited to a small number of airports with the capacity to handle the A380..which limited routing..which gave the airports with it the leverage to start demanding higher fees.
It may be more economical to operate more flights along the same routes using smaller capacity, more efficient aircraft like the 787. They sip fuel, and can operate at most airports, and have a long range.
The trick in the world of airlines is volume. More butts in seats=more money. The idea was the the A380 had a large volume potential and that was a selling point for airlines with longhaul, high capacity routes. They may have thought they could even drop a few flights and move that volume into a single A380 flight. But there were other costs..it required more fuel, probably incurred bigger airport fees, required special ground ops and gates with enough space, had more staffing requirements, took on weight with more of everything from food to blankets to inflight magazines and worst of all, was limited to a small number of airports with the capacity to handle the A380..which limited routing..which gave the airports with it the leverage to start demanding higher fees.
It may be more economical to operate more flights along the same routes using smaller capacity, more efficient aircraft like the 787. They sip fuel, and can operate at most airports, and have a long range.
Feb 25, 2019, 7:53 pm
#41
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Yes, there seems to be a kind of "sweet spot" max capacity for profitable airliners in this era of perhaps 350-400. Once you get above that, the economies of scale disappear.
Weak analogy, but I'm thinking of pizza. No one sells a 24" or 36" pizza. The maximum size seems to top out at about 18".
Weak analogy, but I'm thinking of pizza. No one sells a 24" or 36" pizza. The maximum size seems to top out at about 18".
Feb 26, 2019, 7:04 am
#42
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Here's a good article by Clive Irving that echoes many of the points made upthread about the A380's challenging economics and Airbus' bad bet on the evolution of longhaul air networks.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-su...-air-travelers
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-su...-air-travelers
Feb 26, 2019, 11:06 am
#43
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Here's a good article by Clive Irving that echoes many of the points made upthread about the A380's challenging economics and Airbus' bad bet on the evolution of longhaul air networks.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-su...-air-travelers
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-su...-air-travelers
Mar 7, 2019, 7:42 am
#44
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Leads me to think that while the A380 may or could have been "more efficient" in getting passengers from A to B (assuming a market existed to ensure reasonable loads), it would have been less efficient if pax had to fly via C, let alone also between C and D with pax having to also fly from A to C and then to D before getting to B.
But i think the bottom line is, the A380 was solving for route systems circa 1970 (when A-> B-> C-> D passengers converged on superhubs to fly B-> C) or a possibly dystopian 2070 (when superhubs are uniformly overtaxed, unexpanded, and slot-controlled, forcing mass deployment of VLAs) but not status quo networks, where capacity and flexibility afford direct A-> D travel.