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Airbus Is Giving Up On the A380 (cnn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-an-era dept.

"It's the end of the line for the biggest passenger jet ever built: the A380 is going to cease production," writes Slashdot reader Required Snark, citing a report from CNN. From the report: The European plane maker said Thursday that it will stop delivering A380s in 2021 after its key customer, Dubai-based airline Emirates, slashed its orders for the huge jetliner. "We have no substantial A380 backlog and hence no basis to sustain production, despite all our sales efforts with other airlines in recent years," Airbus CEO Tom Enders said in a company statement. The company has delivered 234 of the superjumbos to date, less than a quarter of the 1,200 it predicted it would sell when it first introduced the double-decker aircraft. Its plans were undermined by airlines shifting their interest to lighter, more fuel efficient passenger jets that have reduced the need to ferry passengers between the big hubs. "Passengers all over the world love to fly on this great aircraft. Hence today's announcement is painful for us and the A380 communities worldwide," Enders said. "But keep in mind that A380s will still roam the skies for many years to come and Airbus will of course continue to fully support the A380 operators."

9 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. There is a market for huge planes, in theory by bluegutang · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Plenty of airports have reached, or are reaching, their maximum capacity. If a single takeoff/landing could carry more passengers, that would be very welcome.

    The problem with the A380 is that it creates more turbulence in the air around it than any other plane. This necessitates, for safety reasons, a longer delay between the A380 and the plane after it than is required for other planes. So if you have more passengers on each plane, but a longer wait between planes, that neutralizes the capacity advantage of the A380.

    1. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by Sique · · Score: 4, Interesting
      This is not the only problem. It has four engines instead of two like the 777 or the A350, which causes servicing to take longer and be more expensive and making it less fuel efficient.

      Furthermore the wings are constructed to house more fuel tanks than actually used, making the wings unnecessarily complicated and heavy, decreasing efficency and increasing costs. In this case, preparation for an ultra long distance version which never was ordered created a problem for the versions in operation.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    2. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by jeremyp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No. The problem is that it has got four engines. Two modern twin engined planes can carry more passengers with better fuel economy to more airports with more flexibility. The Boeing 747-8 has also bombed, at least in the passenger carrying market and for the same reason: nobody wants four engined aircraft anymore.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    3. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by Sique · · Score: 4, Interesting
      In general, the economical evaluation of planes has to look into many factors: Transport capacity is only one of them. Fuel efficiency, maximum distance, cost of servicing, cost of operating, cost of landing slots, expected number of passengers, expected price per ticket etc.pp.

      The design of the Airbus A380 started, when oil was comparatively cheap, at the end of the 1990ies. At this time, cost for the flight crew and the landing slots were more important, causing the flight operators to look for the largest capacity possible to haul as much passengers with as few planes as possible. This was the heyday of the hub-and-spoke approach, where as many passengers as possible were carried to a few but large airports, which were connected to each other with very large vessels. In this environment, the A380 totally made sense, as the big plane to fly the backbone routes of the international flight network.

      More fuel efficient planes made it economical to connect medium sized airports directly without going through a large hub. And here, you don't need the large capacities, slot prices are lower, so you can offset the higher crew cost of operating more planes. For those relations, the A380 is simply too large and not fuel efficient enough, and its demands on the airport infrastructure are too high. So the number of relation it can operate economically is shrinking. And higher oil prices caused the cost of fuel per seat to increase, and the more efficient planes are flying cheaper even when you need more crew for more planes. And with their lower operating costs on ground for service, they even compete successfully on the few remaining large capacity relations the A380 was designed for.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    4. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is not the only problem. It has four engines instead of two like the 777 or the A350, which causes servicing to take longer and be more expensive and making it less fuel efficient.

      Furthermore the wings are constructed to house more fuel tanks than actually used, making the wings unnecessarily complicated and heavy, decreasing efficency and increasing costs. In this case, preparation for an ultra long distance version which never was ordered created a problem for the versions in operation.

      What I heard is that it is more fuel efficient. You can cram almost as many people into one A380 as a 777 or a A350 and that is with the normal A380 since the potential for stretch versions will now never be tapped. So the A380 can carry the same amount of passengers on four engines with one crew on one landing slot as two A350 or a two 777 on four engines, with two crews and two landing slots. That equals more efficiency, not less. This it what the A380 was conceived for, travel between large hubs over long distances, not trips between Farmerssville Kansas and Someburg in Texas. The real issue here from what I can gather is business models airlines are increasingly using. Airlines are increasingly using smaller aircraft to create connections between smaller airports and bypassing the big hubs so A380 demand remains weaker than anticipated. Additionally there was some talk about the big hubs being reluctant to make the changes needed for the A380, although I don't really think that is an insurmountable obstacle. All in all the A380 is an aircraft that will probably be highly sought after on the second hand market years from now when the market has expanded to the point where the capacity it offers is more sorely needed.

    5. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The funniest thing about it is that some of these airlines changed their minds about that and did ask for a modernised A330 after all. Cue the A330neo that now cannibalises a part of the A350 sales.

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      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    6. Re:There is a market for huge planes, in theory by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The first sale of a 787 was on April 4, 2004. The A350 project started September 14, 2004. Airbus dismissed the concept of a more fuel-efficient, long-range, medium sized aircraft until Boeing started selling them in quantity...

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      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  2. Boeing vindicated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, Boeing guessed correctly and explicitly stated that their forecast for the entire global market for super jumbos like the A380 to be around 250 planes in total IIRC. So their forecast proved to be spot on. The market wasn't worth competing for, and they let Airbus have it, knowing that it wasn't worth the investment.

    Airbus isn't interested so much in profit as it is in being a european jobs program.

  3. Re:So the industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Unintended consequences.
    Efficienty and being green is just hot air.
    Forget fuel costs, A380 is not that different. Landing fees are the profit killer, especially where there are no near alternatives in curfew zones.
    Airports first raised landing fees for A380, as fewer landings was not what was wanted, and lowered fees elsewhere. Ouch.
    Interest rates dropped to record lows - so more aircraft became affordable.
    Then seat packing and extra rows in the smaller places were accepted by stupid flyers.
    Then new airports were built or expanded, keeping the lid on per pax fees, worked against A380.
    Airport security also killed 380's too - imagine if standby flights could come back? Peak screening times rose.

    It seems blockbuster longhaul A380 is king - The Haj, CNY and Christmas peak periods when all airport slots are full (and airport wishing more 380's).

    When A380's stop being made, watch greedy airport monoplies hike two engine jet landing fees again - because they can.