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Airbus Launches 800 Passenger Jumbo Jet
voma writes "Airbus, the world's largest planemaker, will unveil its A380, a $16 billion wager that airlines will order giant aircraft to ferry passengers between major airports over the next 20 years. The double-decker A380 plane has a wing span of 80 meters (262 feet), almost the length of an American football field. It's 73 meters long and weighs as much as 569 tons (1.2 million pounds) when fully loaded for takeoff. It will have a range of 8,000 nautical miles."
Where's the American version, that holds 400 jumbo passengers?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I though the problem with the airline industry wasn't plane capacity but the more nimble competitors cherrypicking the mist profitable connections.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
The wings for this plane are so big that they are floated out to see on a huge barge down the Dee Estuary in Wales, and taken by ship to be assembled with the reat of the plane in Toulouse, France. On the way, the wings pass on a special vehicle through several hunred yards of farm land and cross a main road. Thise Europeans know how to do big engineering projects.
I stole this
The trend towards super duper jumbo jets comes at the expense of the smaller regional jets which were all the rage 5 to 10 years ago. Companies like Bombardier and Embraer have run into trouble selling their small and mid sized jets as the airline market in general has tanked post 9-11. The only real growth area of the airplane manufacturing business is these jumbo jets, as their sheer volume (with the 555 seats) allows them to keep individual prices lower given the cut-throat pricing that discount airlines can provide. The moral for the consumer is that the quality of air travel will continue to decline. I personally prefer to fly in a small jet where I can feel less like cattle, screened, and herded into these flying apartment buildings that rather than afford greater space just pack in more and more people so as to struggle to make a profit in what is essentially a state-subsidised market in crisis... :P
Although the maximum capacity is 840 (in sardine mode), the typical configuration is about 555. Compare to the typical configuration for a 747 of 416. [Reference]
This is quite exciting for me, I once did some work on a project related to the A380 when it was still very much on the drawing board.
The plane is also the same kind of dimension as the B747, so that no US airport can "refuse" landing ;-)
European industry has learnt a lot from the Concorde failure where the US air lobbies has successfully limited the airport landing slots.
Things should get really interesting here. As I understand it, Airbus and the European aerospace industry in general has been gradually overtaking Boeing and the US industry for a decade or more now. This plane is sort of symbolic - after 40-odd years as the only game in town, the 747 is suddenly no longer the biggest passenger plane suitable for regular use.
This seems to be just another chapter in a gradually emerging rivalry between the EU and the US. Other chapters have included:
- the great banana and steel trade war
- Freedom Fries vs french fries
- the EU vs Microsoft
- Germany and France vs the US over Iraq (although that may have had something to do with sanity vs idiocy too)
- the Euro vs the Dollar, especially in major oil and currency markets
- snooty French people vs loutish American tourists
- the new european GPS equivalent (Magellan?) vs GPS
- everyone on Earth lead by the EU vs the US over Kyoto
- the european vs US approach to Israel and the Middle East
- increasing secularism (EU, see for example banning of headscarves) vs increasing evangelicalism (US/Jesusland)
Anyway, all this adds up to something quite interesting over the next 20-50 years. We have one very old, very industrialised bloc of about 500 million people who have finally decided to stop killing each other for the first time in history and cooperate. Across the atlantic we have 250 million odd people who have been undisputed leaders of the world for several decades now. Other factors of great interest include the massive US military budget compared to Europe's relatively small one, and the big question of who will adapt better to a world without oil and with a powerful China and India in it.
Read Pynchon.
almost the length of an American football field
How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
So? /.
The roll-out is a landmark and can be signalled as such by tech sites like
I'm interested in the aircraft industry but don't frequent their news sites as much as some other fields of interest.
Then when such a landmark comes along I find it nice to be reminded, especially when in a discussion forum people can give their opinion about what is no doubt a new class of airliner.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It seems the airline industry is going in two separate directions. Airbus is going for capacity while Boeing is going for distance. The problem with this airbus is that is is so big, it will only be able to land at the major hubs. This will take traffic away from the smaller airports and increase the load placed on the major airports. Boeing's 7E7 seems to be a better idea to me. Personally, I would rather fly Concorde!!
This is a little different, since it actually solves a lot of existing problems (or alleviates them somewhat anyway), whereas Concorde presented a whole bunch of new problems. The A380 has lower cost per passenger, better fuel economy, more eco friendly than existing large passenger jets.
And certainly in the UK, and I believe much of Europe also, landing slots and airspace are what is in short supply at airports, packing more passengers on each airplane helps both.
Oh no... it's the future.
In somewhat related news, Boeing recently unveiled a prototype section of its 7E7 Dreamliner:
e /s tory/4440746p-4194580c.html
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/aerospac
From that article:
The 22-foot-long fuselage section represents the fruit of years of development by Boeing engineers in composite technology. At 19 feet in diameter, it is the largest pressurized composite airliner fuselage section ever built by Boeing or any aerospace company....
The huge structure is just one piece, not the thousands of pieces of aluminum and fasteners it would have been had Boeing made it of metal.
to see how the flying public reacts to the first accident or near accident on one of these things.
Personally, I welcome our massive economy-fare overlords. I fly constantly, but rarely have ever ridden in a 747. If they can take the bulk hub/hub passenger loads, I hope that will drive down prices across the network.
Even simply debarking from a full 747 from an unfavorable seat can take seemingly forever. This one will take a significant amount of time.
-Styopa
Just because the US government does it more stealthy through for example "defence contracts" that for "reasons of national security" cannot be shown to the public?
Although the legal mess that came about after the contract negotiations for new tanker planes is encouraging.
At least this is some sign the US military is willing (or is it forced?) to look further than domestic manufacturers.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Airliners.net has some good information on the A380 aircraft, and the history of the devlopment.
You can also see tons of pictures of the A380, both the ground test aircraft and the first flight aircraft.
A A380-800 carrying 550 passengers costs $270million.
A 747-400 carrying 436 passangers costs $215million.
Both work out at roughly $0.5million per passenger.
The Airbus requires the same length runway to takeoff and land, but it requires wider runways. Most airports can take the A380 currently, with only some having to expand runways or taxiways to fit.
The 747-400 has a range of 14,205km, with a max fuel capacity of 63,700gallons.
The A380-800 has a range of 15,100km, with a max fuel capacity of 81,900gallons.
That gives the 747-400 a rate of 0.2km/g.
And the A380 a rate of 0.18km/g.
Or, based on passenger numbers, the 747-400 has a rate of 1.02 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. The A380 has a rate of 0.9 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. (work all that out myself, phew). This gives the Airbus a more efficient fuel cost when carrying a full passenger load.
The A380 will be used mainly on the longhaul hub routes, such as LA to Hongkong, London to Hongkong, London to Sydney, London to New York, New York to Hongkong etc. You will see it on other routes tho, its just as good for those.
So far Airbus have sold 139 A380-800 aircraft, half of what it needs to break even.
Just write on the side: If you blow one of these up, we'll make bombers out of the others.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Why?
Lots of great pictures of the A380 are accessible from this search page. Pictures cover part shipment by barge and truck, as well as the build and rollout of the first two A380s (#1 an engineering test platform that won't fly, and #2 that WILL fly).
It isn't so much that Boeing wasn't nimble enough in this case, it was too jingoistic. Remember the year (2001-2003) when everybody in the US (well, the white house and the mainstream media anyway) was all anti-french, "Old Europe", and all, becasue France and Germany wouldn't back the invasion? Well, that year Boeing didn't go to the Paris air show, where a lot of deals are signed. Airbus wasn't as stupid (they're not American anyway) and they got an order of 45 A380s from Kuwait airlines. That is a big order. An order that the extended version of the 747 then being planned did not get. So all of a sudden Boeing starts talking as if they made a strategy shift to smaller planes.
No one gives up a race they've been leading for 40 years just like that! Boeing was stupid, they should've gone to Paris and eaten french fries, they probably would've gotten some orders, and the jumbo jet wars wouldn't end up so lop-sided.
That google image link has Google textads for ebay... "Airbus A380 for sale. aff Check out the deals now! www.eBay.com" and "Low Priced Airbus A380 Huge Selection! (aff) ebay.ca"
Personally I find that frickin' hilarious.
San Francisco International Airport is one of the few airports around the world that is more or less ready to accept the A380-800.
I cite these reasons:
1. The two longest runways at SFO (Runways 28R/10L and 1R/19L) were widened recently to accommodate the wider stance of the plane. They've also checked these two runways to make sure it can handle the sheer weight of the plane.
2. They've widened a number of taxiways to accommodate the A380-800.
3. Most importantly, SFO's vastly-expanded International Terminal that opened at the end of 2000 was designed and built just when Airbus was finishing its design work on the A380. As such, the International Terminal has gates with 80 x 80 meter gate spacing and high-capacity Federal Inspection Service (Customs and Immigration) processing areas to handle the deboarding of multiple A380's easily.
There is still an issue of taxiway spacing, but SFO officials are working out taxiing procedures for getting the A380-800 on and off the runway quickly to avoid congestion problems, especially during the middle of the day.
It's a pronunciation problem that got out of hand...it's called the war on tourism.
Megajumbos should use less fuel per passenger
Yes, they do, but the breakeven point is obviously much higher. Depending on fare structure, it's entirely reasonable for a 767 and a 747 have a breakeven point of 65% maximum passenger loads. However, for the former, that's 143 passengers (assuming 220 total) and the latter that's 240 passengers (assuming 370 total.)
There isn't really a "gravy point" with economy class seating at discounted pricing. A great example of that is Continental airlines flying 757s across the atlantic. Continental doesn't give a rats ass about what's in economy, because, for instance, on the Cleveland to London flight, a half full first class one way pays for the entire flight both ways. Everything else in the back cabin is either profit or an expense, depending on average price paid (and the 757 is a smaller aircraft overall that's cheaper to fly than a wide bodied aircraft. There are other routes on which Continental could fly a 757, but fly a 767 or 777 instead...why? Because those routes get lots of profitable cargo, which the 757 doesn't have room for. For this reason transatlantic flight routes are best chosen based on their ability to attract first and business class passengers, plus cargo regardless of the quantity in economy.)
Super Jumbos are inherently inflexible on this point...since it takes a lot of first class passengers/cargo on such a big plane to pay off its costs. If there is a mad rush of economy passengers for a particular route, the airline is in a far better position to raise fares on 150 economy passengers than have 100 economy seats given away for free. It's not about quantity, it's about revenue per seat quality.
It is what you make of it. There are places I can live, and places I could not live. It is your fault if you cannot see the beauty of Texas. It is my fault if I cannot see the beauty of Italy. (I've never been to Italy)
3 litres per 100 km or thereabouts? OK, aviation fuel against petrol, but still
The current international price of aviation turbine fuel is about $450 per 1000 liters, which is probably lower than gasoline/petrol prices (comparing bulk prices of course) at whatever airport you are. This is partly because aviation fuel has longer alkanes and is more similar to kerosene, and partly because it doesn't need to be as hair-splittingly fractionated as gasoline.
The fuel efficiency of the A380 has been reported as "95 miles to the gallon per passenger", which should probably read "95 passenger-miles per gallon". (The mpg doesn't increase with more passengers). Assuming Imperial gallons here (BBC report), and assuming a complement of 555 passengers, the consumption comes to 16.34 liters of fuel per kilometer, or about 225,000 liters (180 tons assuming a density of 0.8 kg per liter) for a trip of 7500 nautical miles (13900 km). That number seems believable.
Now to estimate the price:
A380 fuel cost, for 225,000 liters: $101,250.
555 passengers need about 139 cars (assuming 4 per car). Assuming a fuel efficiency of 11 km/l (26 miles per US gallon), that is 175,645 liters of gasoline, which by US retail prices would come to approximately $88,000. European gas prices would probably make it higher than $100,000. I don't know about European *bulk* prices for gasoline.
Interesting numbers. How does the A380 compare to the 747, the 777 and the A340 in terms of fuel efficiency?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Planes are the wrong solution for the problem. What we should be using are Airships or Zeppelins. Instead of cramming people into a steel tube, you can create a small flying hotel and all for lower fuel costs than a jumbo. Admittedly, it's slower than a plane, more like a very fast yacht, but people used to put up with far worse in the last century and these days we have tele-conferencing, email and reliable phone systems so there should be less urgency in flying for most of us.
And just imagine flying across the Atlantic whilst sitting round a dining-table. Hell, larger ones might even have space for a small kitchen. We (the species) need to slow-down and make better use of the technology we have. I mean, hasn't anyone else ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? - "No ticket!" Didn't it look grand?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Speaking as a European, I'd like to congratulate the United States on its latest airliner.
Seriously. 50% of the A380 subassemblies come from the USA. Boeing is playing the "it's an evil foreign plot to topple American dominance of the aerospace industry!" card, but that's just self-serving FUD. Remember, for each $280M A380 that sells, American companies pick up 50% of the assembly work. Similarly, large chunks of Boeing's products come from EADS, BAE systems, and other non-American contractors.
So let's get over the jingoistic flag-waving and evaluate this rather impressive piece of hardware on its actual merits, shall we?