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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.
[...] 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.
So, it is not surprising - especially of the cost of mid-size planes decreases - that airlines would go this way.
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That could be part of the problem. They've probably reached a point where mass transport of passengers doesn't pay off anymore. At least not well and fast enough to justify further investment any time soon.
I would expect the market for the A380 to grown in time though. Just not as fast as Airbus might hope,
Then again, this could be just some marketing babble or call for more EU funds for Airbus. The latter being the most likely.
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The A380's poor service record with being grounded so much didn't help. It also didn't help that it didn't actually end up helping congestion. The wake off the 380 is so bad they have to space out landings further at major airports like Heathrow. Plus, very few runways were structurally capable of landing a 380, since the last update to max gross weight for runways was the 747.
It just isn't living up to Airbus' promises. And, now that you only need 2 engines for transoceanic flight and 2 engine aircraft like the 787 can cover the world's longest routes, there's no need to have a bigger plane to get good long range performance. There's no business case for the A380, just like there's not much of a business case for the 747.
I have been told all my life that Europe can do no wrong. It is not possible that a European product can fail. I cannot go on. Goodbye.
The problem they couldn't solve is how to load/unload all the passengers efficently. How fast you can get in/out of the gate is just as important as how many passengers you can carry
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.
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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.
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.
Except the showers, cinemas, shopping malls etc, are entirely optional on the A380, and airlines can (and do) just fit them out with regular economy, business and first sections and just carry more people for the same price - or add deluxe accommodation in first without reducing the number of cattle in the back.
I've ended up on an A380 from San Francisco to Heathrow a couple of times in premium economy - the accommodation was no different from any other plane, except everything is a bit newer. What makes it more pleasant is that it is noticeably quieter and, supposedly, higher air pressure (I'll have to take that on trust since I had to give my barometer away to some bloody architect).
Nope, I suspect the "failure" of the 380 is that the easier solution to airport capacity is to add new flights between alternative, less crowded airports ...which is probably why, on my last trip, I ended up on a flight from Gatwick to Oakland on a regular plane that avoided the scrum of mega-airports, took me closer to where I needed to go and cost less.
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IMHO The A380 works pretty well servicing flights into or out of Australia. I think It's pretty much the ideal case for the plane right now. Lots of people wanting to travel half way around the world, with varied destinations. Routes that no plane can yet do in a single hop, with enough demand to fill each plane. So fill a few A380's going to other travel hubs, and swap there for another large plane.
But for the northern hemisphere, there's enough demand for single hop flights between regional airports, and a few choices for planes that can fly those routes efficiently. Plus smaller airports are much cheaper to fly into and out of. Bigger is not always better.
The A380 works great for Emirates because they want to fly everyone into their country, making it an important international hub. So they can have these huge planes flying people in and out, 500 at a time, because these people have to travel around the world and need to take two flights no matter what. What US airlines have found, however, is that it's a heck of a lot cheaper to fly back and forth between regional airports than to have a hub and spoke model because congestion at one regional airline only affects flights back and forth between that airport. If your hub goes down for whatever reason, your entire flight schedule is thrown into jeopardy. If you look at schedules, you'll see that UAL has planes that do nothing but fly between SFO and ATL all day, or IAH and ORD all day. Delta has routes between AUS and ATL all day long, etc. These planes do nothing else. They continue to make revenue as long as those two airports do not experience delays. If DXB has delays, all of Emirate's flights will be delayed. They all go through Dubai.
I live in NZ but I'm from the UK. I go home every so often for visits. I always fly Emirates just so I can fly in the A380. Why?
I've flown in 747's so many times I've lost count which is why the first time I flew in an A380 I almost shit myself.
So used to hearing the engines of the 747 go full throttle, being thrown back in my seat as it launches itself down the run way, I expected the same of the A380.
Not so. When it took off (from Auckland) it felt like it was taxi-ing down the run way. In my head I'm thinking "come on Cap'n put the f-ing boot down".
He didn't. It just trundled leisurely along. I'm now thinking "FFS, there's water at the end of this run way, stop teasing and go man!"
Then all of a sudden it lifted it nose. My knuckles went white. It soared gracefully into the air. I was gob smacked.
That and it's so much quieter than any other jet I've ever flown in.
If you have to spend a whole day at 36,000 feet sitting on your arse watching tv & movies then I recommend doing in this bird - while you still can...