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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.
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
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]
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.
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.
The long haul routes are hard to cherry pick, because they are, in general, handed out by governments, so they go to whoever buys the most politicians.
AIUI, airbus is gambling on lower cost per seat per mile being attractive to the companies who have been handed some of those routes since it allows them to increase profit (or in the case of US airlines, lose less money:-)).
That may give the big operators spare cash to compete on the short-haul and internal routes, or they may give up on those routes as not being worth the candle.
Then there is the charter market. A big tourist operation may be able to fill one of these monsters per day to each of the the big destinations, again increasing the margin over having to put on a couple of jumboes.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
You might like small planes, but these are why the market in the US needs state subsidies. Take a look at the UK / Ireland and their low cost opperations. All the flights are on 737s or their equivalent. The big operators are Easyjet and Ryanair. This is real no frills stuff, but we're flying across Europe for under $100 return while Americans are paying more than that per leg. These airlines are posting profits too ($226 million Euros for Ryanair in 2004). Maybe folk need to ask why the US government is willing to subsidise a business model that is so obviously flawed?
It wasn't the "air lobbies" that doomed Concorde, it was environmentalists and other citizens who didn't want supersonic flight over populated areas, or Concorde's excessive noise and air pollution. They also helped to kill the Boeing SST.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
That said, LAX was quoted in one news source (can't find article now) as already planning to make the necessary upgrades for an A380 to land.
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.
Airbus is clearly gunning for the 747 market - the 747 series of aircraft have the basic design and efficiencies of the 1960s. Boeing has let the 747 become a technical laggard, and Airbus has poised itself to shut down the 747 production line with a much more modern aircraft in terms of cost. (many thanks to Boeing's poor management - where are the institutional shareholders when you need them?)
Big planes are great for reducing costs between large cities - say, New York to Tokyo. Or SF to London. Instead of two flights using two birds and two crews, you can do it once. And with modern, efficient, and quiet engines. And that's a huge cost savings all around.
And to get carriers to unload their 747s, you've got to make it compelling. A much more efficient plane with even more capacity is bound to result in airlines unloading the 747. It costs a lot of money to operate per passenger mile. The 747 expense has become too great.
But many flights these days are regional, and will remain that way. All of those 737 flights between cities will remain, and will continue to grow. Why have a 500+ passenger jet fly that can go 5000+ miles fly a 1500 mile vacation route that serves only 320 passengers? A couple 737 flights sounds better in that application.
So the smaller jets aren't going away - it is the 747 that's leaving commerical passenger service.
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?
Airbus is going for both capacity and range:
767ER (10,500km range carrying 245 passengers)
747-400ER (13,500km carrying 420 passengers)
777ER (13,500km range carrying 365 passengers)
7E7 (15,350Km carrying 250 passengers)
A340 (15,750km carrying 313 passengers)
A380 (15,100lm carrying 550 passengers)
In terms of pure weight on the tarmac the A380 actually isn't 'worse' than the 747. It's been specifically built with enough set of wheels to be 747 compatible in that respect, so that hardly any 747 serving airport will need work.
Gate distances are compatible as well, however to make the bird turn around reasonably quick there's a need for double level terminals and jet bridges. That way one can move passengers in and out without forcing them through the bottleneck of the aircraft stairs. These facilities (as well as large enough immigration areas/multiple baggage carousels etc) is what some large airports are still missing.
Maybe folk need to ask why the US government is willing to subsidise a business model that is so obviously flawed?
Because the large airlines run their own (very expensive) pension systems which are insured by the federal government.
It's far cheaper to give the airlines support in the tens of billions of dollars to keep them afloat than to let them...hehe..crash and burn, and then have to cover pension liabilities in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
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.
Your facts are so wrong, and your premise is just plain stupid. Airlines don't decide to purchase planes at airshows; they talk to the manufacturer for months or even years trying to hammer out the specifications, the price, delivery slots, engine choices, etc. etc. The fact that Boeing wasn't present at an airshow means little; Airbus is actually quite known for delaying the announcement of a new order until an airshow (they like to make a big media splash, so rather than announcing an order as its finalized, they'd rather wait for an airshow to announce several orders.) The fact that Boeing wasn't there and Airbus was had _nothing_ to do with the A380 order.
In addition, it wasn't Kuwait airlines that order 43 A380's, it was Emirates.
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?
I beg your pardon, but you seem to have missed my point. The mention of modern communications technology -email, tele-conferencing, etc. - was to illustrate that for urgent communication there is now less need for fast travel than there previously was. If something is urgent, then most likely these chanels will be used more than the afternoon or day or even two days it takes to physically move someone to a meeting.
Now so long as you see the reasoning behind that, then you see that the remaining make up of travellers is perhaps less speed-obsessed than it once was. I also think it is clear that this tendancy will increase.
All of which means that perhaps taking a day to fly across the Atlantic is not so unappealing. Imagine having a cabin rather than crammed into a seat. You would have a bed, maybe a workstation if you are a business traveller. Also, subject to meeting attractive peoples of your preferred gender on the trip, you would no longer have to try and use the cramped toilet cubicle for sexual congresses.
All in all, the trip would be much more attractive for any traveller who did not need the fastest transport available. As I was getting at earlier, these people should be a smaller proportion than in the last century. Also cost is much lower for an airship to run. Some people may be interested in cost savings. Not everyone has as much money to throw around as you.
I hope that explains my point of view better. I would like my Insightful mod now please.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.