planemechanic

It depends on how small you think small is. United has 24 B747's, and a fleet of 52 B777's, even more if you add in CO's 22 B777's. Is 74 B777's a small fleet?

BearX220

True, but Branson doesn't control the airline which is 51% owned by US interests -- which have been trying to get out of their investment since 2009, incidentally, given the floods of red ink VX has run up:

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=6960985&page=1

That was their one and only profitable quarter since their August 2007 launch. 16 quarters, 15 money-losing quarters. Their net loss for 2010 was $69 million:

http://atwonline.com/airline-finance...-net-loss-0424

VX is a financial basket case.

Politics and European vanity. The A380 program won't be profitable for Airbus until they deliver 200-250 airframes, and the European flag carriers have all felt pressure to chip in. BA, LH and AF have all stepped up.

Putting the A380 on TATL doesn't necessarily make economic sense; it yields a limited amount of PR value with the minority of pax who pay attention to aircraft type. But the dominant aircraft on the North Atlantic became the 767 in the late 1980s and today is the A330. The 747 is seldom seen over the pond anymore for good sound reasons, principally the "gateway bypass" strategy made possible by smaller, longer-range twins including ETOPS 757s. if the 747 makes less and less sense TATL, the A380 makes even less sense than that.

It's an interesting airplane but not a particularly useful or appropriate one on most of the world's air routes. As I said earlier the A380 will show up regularly at about a dozen airports on earth: SYD, DXB, LHR, ICN, LAX, LHR, FRA, JFK, CDG, NRT, JFK, SIN, HKG. That's its economic envelope, pure and simple.

neuron

Don't forget the plethora of Embraers and Bombardier planes that all the majors (exc SW) have.

I suspect the airlines will buy the best planes that suit their business plan at the best price they can get and operate.

ssb2045

It makes more sense for the European carriers who have one or two hubs, but UA for example has TATL service from several gateways, so the total feed is split up more so than at, say, CDG.

YVR Cockroach

The A340 initially had greater range than the initial 777s and 330s (the latter mainly by Airbus design). I believe US had 340s on option but chose to stay with 333s and than later 332s. I'm not sure if NW ever had any 340s on option but they got their 332s cheap (some company spokesperson accidentally let loose they got them for USD 80mm each). Boeing made exclusive deals with CO, AA and DL by offering the best prices and preferred access. Certainly CO and AA bought and operated Airbii before (and DL may have operated some PA 310s).

Back to the A340, the initial popularity was due to the range offered for a smaller pax capacity than the 747 as well as skirting ETOPS (either the route or airline didn't qualify) as well as the early models of 777s not having much range. Once available, the heavier 777-200ERS took a chunk out of the 340-200/300 market and the 777-300ER destroyed the 346's market (not much call for the 345 or the 777-200LR but if the latter had been made available earlier, I doubt if too many 345s would have sold).

The 330 is superior to the 767 because it, among other things, can carry more freight which is the cream of operating any route (767 was designed in an earlier era when fuel was seen to be rising to high-for-the-era levels). As others noted, it can now operate almost all routes the 340 can. Airbus was initially loathe to let the 330 compete against the 340 and didn't give it the range (via not offering extra belly tanks among other options). The 340-200/300 also suffers from the wing designed to mount either 2 or 4 engines. The 340-200/300 also did not get the P-W GTF engine it was originally designed around (IAE V2500s substituted) so that resulted in the performance and economy hit.

As for the A380, my thoughts are that the production delays and low sales numbers along with the high capital expenditure will mean the programme will never break even financially (it would have to sell and deliver a lot more a/c by now). What's more interesting if that 1 single customer accounts for 40% of 380 orders.

YVR Cockroach

While not quite the same situation, one should ask SQ and TG what they think about operating such a small 345 and 345/346 fleet respectively.

Ancien Maestro

Perhaps the best and new and biggest planes.. come at a Premium when first released?

Maybe waiting awhile until the planes come down in price is actually a pretty good move..

YVR Cockroach

Actually, the airlines who order early get very good discounts (the early A380s were said to be sold at 40% below list). Of course they have to put up with delivery delays (A380, 787, 748) and missed performance promises.

ssb2045

I'm pretty sure that TG tried or is trying to sell their 340s, but nobody else wanted them either...

TrojanHorse

No but evidently the US gov't had to buy Boeing for the replacement tanker so gov't influence could still be there, just sayin

planemechanic

The latest numbers available say the A380 program won't be profitable until more than 600 airframes have been delivered and paid for, any delays or cancellations in the order stream will push that number even higher.

BearX220

Ay caramba. Thanks for the update. I doubt they will get 600 orders over the lifetime of the program given the limited application of the aircraft. Wikipedia says they've taken 253 orders so far -- 90 from Emirates, which I would bet will not take them all up in actual practice -- and delivered 53.

tonywestsider

Economic envelope and slot constraints expand the dozen: PEK, SYD, AUK, MEL, SFO, ZRH, JNB, AUH, KUL, BKK, IAD... In less than five years from now, these dozen airports the A380 currently serves will double.

Ancien Maestro

The sale is always on.. so early buy in gets a discount..

End of life cycle.. airlines get economies of scale production discounts (lower priced)

BearX220

Isn't that the opposite of what you said in #52?