Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production (nytimes.com)

The days may be numbered for the world's largest passenger aircraft. An anonymous reader shares a report: Airbus, the European aerospace group that makes the A380 superjumbo, said on Monday that it would have to end production of the plane if its only major customer, Emirates, did not order more (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). The admission by John Leahy, the company's chief operating officer, was the latest indication that Airbus miscalculated more than two decades ago when it bet that clogged runways would create demand for larger planes that could deliver more people with fewer landing slots. Instead, airlines bypassed the major hubs and ordered midsize planes that could fly directly between regional airports.

[...] When Airbus started delivering the A380 a decade ago, after spending $25 billion to develop it, the company based near Toulouse, France, saw the plane as the solution to airport congestion and to increased demand for air travel. Only so many planes can land at an airport in any given day, so Airbus reasoned that planes carrying more people would allow airports to absorb more passengers. The A380 can carry more than 500 passengers while also offering amenities like showers, first-class suites and a bar.

Comments

Not surprising...

[wbr1]

In many topologies, a network with more nodes allows for more fail over paths and more flexibility, albeit at the expense of more complex routing. Routing however is not an issue - just look to the IT world for examples.

So, it is not surprising - especially of the cost of mid-size planes decreases - that airlines would go this way.

General lesson - same problem as the Concorde

[JoshuaZ]

The general lesson may be the same as that behind the Concorde. There's not a massive market for people willing to pay a massive amount of money for travel by planes. That applies whether the increased cost is for incredible luxury or incredible speed. If this is what is going on, then this does not bode very well for ideas like Musk's point-to-point transit with the Big Falcon Rocket.

Re:General lesson - same problem as the Concorde

[iamgnat]

The general lesson may be the same as that behind the Concorde.

Unlike others, I agree

There's not a massive market for people willing to pay a massive amount of money for travel by planes. That applies whether the increased cost is for incredible luxury or incredible speed.

But I think you went to the wrong conclusion

The biggest issue with the 380 is that not all major airports can accommodate it. Even those that could handle the 747. Remodeling an airport is not a simple affair. Especially those where communities have grown up around them and effectively limited their expansion space.

The Concorde had a similar issue where there were only a few airports could accommodate it's runway requirements and even before it started running into regulation problems there wasn't a swell of airports looking to sink the money into supporting it.

A related issue with the 380 is that many airports are already at or near capacity as it is, so the idea of more people in the same number of flights is another infrastructure problem they have to solve at the same time they are dealing with runway/traffic/gate changes. That doesn't give them much incentive to invest in letting those monsters land.

Re:General lesson - same problem as the Concorde

[JoshuaZ]

Ok. I see it now. It does seem from the time stamps that you posted the comment in reply to me, before you actually posted the comment in question. Your reply to me is timestamped 4:30, and your comment below is at 4:46.

Airbus didn't predict the rise of the big twins

[mykepredko]

If you go back 20 years ago when the A380 was being proposed - Airbus confidently proclaimed that there would be a 1,300+ unit market for a huge four engine jet. Boeing predicted that, at best, there would be a 360 unit market.

The difference was based on the assumptions made by each manufacturer. Airbus, at the time, was pushing the A340 (four engine) over the A330 and getting reasonably good traction which lead them to think that four engines and more passengers was the way to go. Boeing had just finished the B777 and could see it eating into the B747 market - the B777 offered better economics for 250-350 passengers which Boeing decided was the optimal passenger size for long range.

It's interesting to see what happened as Airbus started to develop the A380, it gained a lot of good press and a gold plated launch customer in Emirates (to which Boeing responded with the B747-8 to show they were still in the market but wouldn't require a lot of development funds). Boeing sank their development money into the 7E7 (which became the B787), gained sales of almost a thousand sales before the first roll out and Airbus scrambled with the A350.

The A380 failed simply because Airbus misread the demand for the aircraft (along with the desire to have the bragging rights on the largest airliner out there) and Boeing had a better product roadmap for this space. Boeing is now finishing up the first the second generation B777 prototypes while Airbus is trying to finish the A350 line and revamp the A330.

The writing has been on the wall for the A380 for at least 5 years (arguably 10) and really the big question is when will Airbus decide to take the write-down on the lost development costs.