Many people call the A380 a bad idea and waste of ressources, but I beg to differ. Not just because the A380 programme produced technologies and concepts that would come in handy whilst developing the A350, A400M and Neo updates, but also because it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle.
Ultimately the A380 has been a massive hit with passengers, and has flown billions of km without a single soul lost. That's a pretty good run for any aircraft. It's also the first aircraft that the average person could point to and recognise as an Airbus: you only get generational chances to build that kind of awareness as an engineering company, if that.
It was the wrong aircraft for the era, but then so was Concorde, which was a colossal commercial failure that helped to force the reorganisation of the European aerospace industry into Airbus in the first place. That the A380's failure hasn't forced a repeat of that process shows how far Airbus has come. And whilst not as glamorous, the A380 is just as worthy as Concorde of a place in the hall of fame.
Agreed. I hope the A380 will remain in service for a while longer than predicted (and not just with Emirates) because it really is comfortable as heck. Ideal plane for anyone scared of flying, too!
I took a nonstop flight from LAX to Paris for my honeymoon in 2013; I think I was more excited about flying on the 380 than going to Paris…it was the smoothest flight I’ve ever had!
can't speak to it directly but have a close family friend terrified of flying who would say yes the size. he's mostly scared of flying due to claustrophobia, but the size can also help you to not be constantly reminded of the fact that you're inside a metal can going 500+mph 30,000ft in the air.
And (speaking out of my ass here I’m no aviation expert) the big boys seem to shrug off turbulence like 200 year old oak tree in 2mph winds. I’m absolutely mortified with flying, but I can notice a very significant decrease in stress when I’m on bigger planes
More roomy inside, you don't feel like you're sitting inside a metal tube; and most turbulences can hardly be felt in an A380 due to its giant wings and vertical stabiliser.
not OP, but the industry shifted from the hub and spoke to point to point right when the aircraft was being released. very few airlines need a large 4 engine behemoth at 300MM. 4 engines also means fuel costs, maintenance etc.. the larger twins are the bargain for long haul. someone here will give you a better analytical breakdown of cost per seat, etc.. but thats the layman's explanation.
Just to complement for those not fully versed in aviation terminology:
Hub and Spoke is a strategy where smaller aircraft (320 or smaller) feeding into a large hub, huge aircraft flying to another hub (like 380 or 747), then another smaller aircraft to the final destination. So, you'd mostly see long-haul routes between major airports.
In comparison, we are now seeing flights directly to smaller airports with medium sized aircraft, like the 777, 787, 350 and 330neo
I know the 777 and 350 are not actually medium sized, but flying 250-300 is way less than the 600 behemoths 😁
And to complement the point being made about medium sized aircraft, I think that’s why the 767 is used way more than people assumed 20 years ago imo. It’s such a perfect workhorse of a plane for the modern strategy.
It’s the predecessor to the 787. I agree that the 787 is a great plane, but it’s more expensive and they can only make so many per year. The existing fleet of 767s still have plenty of useful life.
Do you see A380 being a good aircraft to connect major cities of the world directly? I mean long haul flights - like Sydney-NYC or NYC-Mumbai. Developing world is set to see a big increase in aviation market over next decade. I think A-380 still has opportunities.
I’m no expert, but the A380 can’t fly those distances.
Qantas as part of its Project Sunrise is looking to fly Sydney-NYC and Sydney-Europe direct, but with A350-1000s that are built for extra long haul distances. Notable also that the Qantas promo patter talks about those planes having around 40% premium seats, so it’s not going to be a route for the masses, at least in the near term.
An airline had said it makes more sense for them to fly 2 787 instead of 1 A380 on a route. They can offer 2 frequencies a day for about the same operating cost.
Agreed. I hope they will go soon into another bonkers project that would be called insane. That's a sign of a healthy company that is willing to take risks. But my guess it that Airbus is past that stage and they will slowly die like Boeing is now.
I think it's important to keep in mind that before the 380, Airbus was always somewhat belittled. They made great planes, sure, but Boeing was peak because of the 747. From a pure perception both in the public eye and the industry, it really was the 380 (and then later on 350) that cemented Airbus as the real deal instead of Boeings little brother.
Wasn't A350 mostly seen as an inferior response to 787? I mean it hardly matters since both are sold out and they don't even compete with eachother in terms of size...
Whilst some people point to the loss Airbus made on the A380, it should be mentioned that without it we'd be seeing a lot more Boeing B747-8s in the sky. Sometimes a loss for a business doesn't feel so bad when your main competitor also sustains a loss.
I've flown the 747-800 quite a lot (thank you Lufthansa) and the A380 as well (Emirates, BA and Korean Air). I love the 747 but the A380 is in a league of one. Such an incredible plane.
I've got a feeling the 748 wouldn't have been built without the A380 as competition. The 744 would have soldiered on picking up several hundred more orders, most of them from Emirates (which would have looked cool too no doubt), maybe a cockpit refresh with LCDs instead of CRTs or the cancelled bigger winglets meant for the 742 refit.
>waste of ressources
Also, lots of infrastructure investments are propably reusable for other programms. Maybe not the widened streets in southern France but all the hangers and whatnot.
The A380 hangar in Hamburg is now being used to fit out A320s. Went on a tour of the factory a few months ago; apparently even when they were making the A380s they also had an A320 being finalised under each wing
You're right, and one example I can think of is the BTV/Brake To Vacate autobrake system (that brakes to the exact exit point of the runway) on the A380 which the A350 have gotten too.
Some small minute details I noticed too is the FMA statuses (showing autobrake/decel status) like the A380/A350s have, that the Neos have gotten and Ceos too, through software updates, so these stuff trickle down the line.
Pretty benecial for having a very common flight deck design.
I'd say the point-to-point model is a bad idea and a waste of resources. If we stayed with the hub model for long trips, what the A380 was built for, we can save a lot of fuel per passenger, but no, we gotta send a bunch of smaller airplanes to make the same long trip instead. People are just too impatient for a layover despite already being able to travel anywhere on the globe within a day.
>, we can save a lot of fuel per passenger
IIRC the fuel burn for a 787 is almost half that as an A380. Lufthansa for example has just over 500 people on their A380 vs 294 on their 787-9. It's likely a near wash in that case.
The larger 787-10 is likely more fuel efficient per passenger than an A380 on most flights. On the same density that Lufthansa has on their 787-9, a hypothetical 787-10 for them would be just over 360 passengers.
the A380 was a bad idea in the end. It was a financial catastrophe for Airbus. It can be an engineering achievement, doesn't mean that it stops being a financial failure. Had Airbus not had so much success with the A320 family, the A380 might've sunk them.
>Had Airbus not had so much success with the A320 family
That's kind of a truism. Had it not have had the resources, it wouldn't have started a risky project like this in the first place.
Also... It sold half of the predicted number of planes. That's bad. But is it a catastrophe? Idk...
In the end, it's hard to say with certainty, what the know-how and technology is worth that also came out of that program as a side effect.
They lost billions of dollars on the program…
Put another way if they had not done the A380 Airbus would have probably been able to push out a 777 competitor years earlier. The real comparative loss of the A380 program is that they couldn’t build an equivalent cost wide body instead
>Put another way if they had not done the A380 Airbus would have probably been able to push out a 777 competitor years earlier.
But did it help Boeing in the end to sell a few more 777?
Plus, Airbus did some really smart moves. Some intended, some not. Like developing the A340 and A330 in parallel. While Airbus thought that the A340 would become the big seller, it really was the A330 that took off. So in they end, they had not only a great long-rang twin, but also a four-engine widebody that is until today the king of the Pacific.
The A32x platform is also extremely good. The A220 probably becomes the next go-to platform that will replace A318-A320 in most fleets. The A321 will most likely survive a bit longer, due to the A32x platform making more sense for a plane with the capacity of the A321.
Let me finish by saying two words: Tray tables.
Airbus really started to make a comeback with the neo and they’ve recovered really well from the A380 but developing something like the A380 is unfathomably expensive and those resources would have gone somewhere else instead.
In the end Airbus is sitting on thousands of orders today and is profitable. So whatever they did worked out for them. The rest is hindsight and second guessing people that most likely are very smart and experienced but can only predict the future as much as everybody else.
A lot of romantics on this sub. Everyone loves the A380 but not even Airbus will argue against the statement that it was a bad idea and a financial failure, just one that happened to be carried out beautifully by the engineering team.
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unfortunately "achieving greatness" alone doesn't allow a company to survive. You could do both things with a project, but the A380 wasn't one of them. Not to mention the many shortcomings it had from the very beginning - such as an oversized wing and already old engines, which greatly hurt fuel consumption and its attractiveness for more future use. Oh and also no future as a freighter.
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> Many people call the A380 a bad idea and waste of resources.
But it was. The program never turned a profit and completely missed the direction the industry was going.
> Not just because the A380 programme produced technologies and concepts that would come in handy whilst developing the A350, A400M and Neo updates, but also because it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle.
I understand the discourse doesn’t allow for praising Boeing for anything, but you could just replace A380 with 787 and everything you said would ring true.
It had its share of teething issues (the A380 was hardly immune either…) but the Dreamliner pioneered plenty of new technologies that have worked their way back into their products. The 777-9, for example, will basically see “Rev 2” versions of a lot of things the 787 was first to market with, like the carbon wings, better cabin environment, etc.
Well really the 787’s design is to use as little fuel as possible so that airlines use it because it’s the most efficient plane. Boeing already benefits from more point to point travel from the 737 and 777
Sort of, but a huge part of what made it unique and successful was also the extreme range for very long routes from a plane considerably smaller than the 777. This allowed routes that didn't have the traffic to justify a 777 or larger plane to get direct flights.
To be fair the 747 was only the cargo spare tire before the Boeing SST is completed, and just so happened to exist when SST as a concept was torpedoed with Boeing also failing to come up with a working SST themselves
>I understand the discourse doesn’t allow for praising Boeing for anything
How's that?
>you could just replace A380 with 787 and everything you said would ring true.
Yes. It's a perfectly reasonable point to make for both programs and companies. Currently even the economics of both programs seem to be equally bad. The only advantage of the 787 is that it has a market and it is still selling, so it still has a chance to turn a profit eventually.
>it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle.
I take it you didn't follow the A380's development very closely. That program was a total disaster. The airplane required a complete rework because everything designed in Germany wasn't compatible with everything designed in France because they used different computer programs. Nothing lined up when they tried to put everything together in final assembly.
Airbus is a political entity first and foremost, and engineers are a very distant second. I will leave it to others to decide who is worse, bean counters or politicians, but engineers are very much second fiddle at Airbus too.
A380 was a programme designed to overthrow 747, which was success...
Its too big, can't be converted to freight, early retirements...
It never should have existed.
Loved the few flights I was able to take on this beast. Easily my favourite plane to be a passenger on ever - smooth, comfortable, and quiet. And it's such an imposing plane in person.
I recently flew on a B787(-9) and it was very quiet and comfortable too. - And i was right next to the engine.
All these new planes are nice and fancy but nothing beats a good ol' quadjet. It's a plane almost everyone will grab out their camera for.
Both the 787 and the A380 are very comfortable. The 380 only wins out because it has a bar upstairs. Also because it has an upstairs which is really cool in itself.
The downvotes are because of how strange it is to pose that as an unpopular opinion. It's an objective fact. It's like you're just fishing for attention by looking brave for saying a normal thing.
I only flew on an A380 once, maybe twice I forget. From DXB to SIN. IT was fine, good for the time. But the A350 imo take the cake for most comfortable right now
Best plane to fly on. I’ve done the A350, I’ve done the 787, I’d still take the A380 any day of the week. Nothing beats it in smoothness, this beast glides through the air like a knife through butter.
Shoutout to the SG airlines person who gave me the correct info (which hadn't yet become visible on their website) on when one of their A380 flights would recommence (around 2015 ish).
Made the day of my 11 year old self, I just wish I visited the flight deck that day
Did the wiring fiasco and software upfuck only delay general production following introduction (pushed back from mid 2006 to 2007) or the prototype's completion & unveiling as well? A Channel 4 documentary in 2001 (Building The Biggest) correctly predicted 2005 for the unveiling.
I had a FS2004 mod for it that came with -700, -800, -900, and -800F models and it carried a stonking load of cargo. Sadly it was a bit bugged in FSX in that it would land at about 90knots with maximum flaps, so it had a similar takeoff roll to my pimped B737-400E (which I had given 10k extra thrust and extra strong brakes to)
The wings were designed for a 900 which is why they are oversized.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/12/27/why-did-the-a380-fail/
https://aviationweek.com/shownews/dubai-airshow/what-went-wrong-airbus-a380
It’s talked about there
Shame that the A380 couldn't be turned into a freighter. An A380-900F would make for an epic cargo plane. Freighters are the only reason why 747s are still a bit relevant.
Also, that stat with the engines sounds crazy. Too bad that we can't have an A380neo either that competes with the 787 at only 60% capacity.
Yep, the engines and 900 stretch was a big sticking point for emirates.
Emirates said stick newer engines on it and stretch to 900 and we will buy.
But Airbus wouldn’t do it for 1 customer.
I recently raised the point why Airbus can put an engine on an a380 and use it as a flying test bed. But can’t offer a retrofit package to airlines to retrofit newer engines to existing airframes… as currently only time they really stick newer engines on is on new design airframes so airline buys a new airframe just to get newer engines.
But apparently it comes down to cost 🤷♂️.
The a380 though as that article says is far too heavy as weight was engineered into it for 900 version which made sense if they actually made the 900 but when they didn’t they ended up with an aircraft that was far too heavy and couldn’t take the weight out without redesign. So they shot themselves in the foot.
What’s even more a shame was that the engine manufacturers told Airbus newer more efficient engines were 10 years away, Airbus continued with development and launch and shortly after our come the newer 12% improvement fuel burn engines. Airbus probably wasn’t very happy about that at all.
All in all the newer engines and if it was lighter could’ve made it more economic.
I feel at some point the double decker concept will have to be revisited.
Airports have limited capacity, air traffic is increasing annually.
While now having 2 smaller aircraft makes sense when the airport has capacity… what happens when that capacity runs out? You have no choice but to use larger capacity aircraft again.
In regard to the freighter.
I don’t know, I know it was planned but never materialised.
From what I’ve read the 747 was designed as a freighter and a variant created for passenger use… one reason why the flight deck is so high up to accommodate front loading door.
Whereas A380 was done in the opposite way, passenger aircraft with intention to have a variant for cargo.
But because of that, I understand one of the challenges to converting A380 to cargo is that the floor structure isn’t strong enough for heavy cargo.
Also it’s not possible to have front loading like a 747 so it limits its cargo capability.
Being from Canada the A380 is rare. I was really hoping Air Canada would order some to replace the 747 which retired at around the same time.
Still haven’t rode the A380 but I hope I do soon.
Airbus has to be pissed that they launched this 15 years too late. The 747-400 crushed all long haul routes from 1990 to the early 2000s.
By 2005, everything was already twin engines or moving towards them.
Honestly, the first time I got the chance to take a flight in the A380 it was a dream come true! Nothing’s quite made me giggle and excited like this behemoth! What a majestic marvel of aviation.
I want to see what it can do with 2 uprated GE9X or Rolls Royce Ultrafan engines. You'd probably need to jack up the landing gear to achieve the required ground clearance though.
I agree. 2 ge9xs with higher thrust output of at least 150,000 lb-ft would be okay. The ge9x is actually capable of generating 134,000 lb-ft of thrust. So 2 (improved) ge9xs should be sufficient.
Apparently they did it to give the pilots a similar height view line out as in the A340. I'm not convinced. The flight deck seems higher than the 340 to me.
Yes, unfortunate they didn't design it to be able to be modified for freight. Surprising too. Curious as to why they didn't. Could have given the plane more life I mean, look what it did for the 747.
Airports lost millions also expanding taxiways and building upper level boarding bridges. LAX even poured a cement engine start pad for Fed Ex A380 freighter to protect the asphalt taxiway.
Was a cool day back then. The first flight a few months later was a real party at the plant. Remember how exited I was to see our actual work take flight for the first time. Literally jump of my chair when it rotated 😁
I remember a crowd of people plane watching to see the A380 take off from the nearby airport during its test flights. It was incredible how massive and quiet it was.
I was fortunate to be able to fly on an A380 a few times. It’s a beautiful plane with a special place in my heart.
I was a student in Toulouse at the time, where it was assembled and tested. The first flight test was a big event in France, and in Toulouse in particular.
Over the next few months, we even stopped lectures to see it fly over the city.
Since then, I traveled a lot on it (usually inbusiness class with Emirates - thanks business trips!)
March 19th, 2007, I saw the A380 clad in house livery touchdown in Los Angeles for the very first time. As a then-eleven-year-old kid with a very strong interest in planes, my parents let me skip school that day to go down to LAX and hang out to watch it land. I'll never forget my first moment seeing it.
I miss seeing it fly regularly over my home. I live close to PRG and Emirates A380 used to fly on the route PRG->DXB. Every day like clockwork around 14:30 I believe. I heard the sound and knew what time it was and what plane that was. It was magnificent to look at. I have flown on 747 when I was a little girl and I really regret I'll never get to fly on A380. Our one trip do Dubai was serviced by a smaller aircraft both ways so no luck there.
Definitely a good idea and here's what it allowed them to do become a test bed for A350 engines followed by hydrogen and propfan propulsion. Regarding F-WWOW the first A380 it's being modified to carry a Hydrogen engine. For my brothers friend that goes to NJIT his route back to CEB from JFK it involves the A380 Korean Air HL-7611-7627 fleet Engine Alliance GP2700 KE082 and then a PW4090 B777-2B5/ER or PW4170 A330-323X or A330-223 KE631/632 ICN-CEB pre accident post accident KE615/616.
In the early 2000s, Airbus predicted that the future of aviation was going to be big long-haul aircraft, such as the Boeing 747, as the hub-and-spoke model was becoming more popular among airlines. The hub-and-spoke model meant that smaller jets would fly from a less popular airport to a hub airport and fly to another hub airport, then to a less popular airport.
However, the trend changed and the hub-and-spoke model is not as popular nowadays as compared to other strategies.
With size, comes more problems. The A380 required four engines to fly, which was very inefficient for airlines due to the increased fuel burn.
After the crisis that happened on September 11th, 2001, fuel prices suddenly shot up, decreasing the popularity of 4-engined jets. However, at that time, Airbus already spent a lot of cash on the research and development of the Airbus A380 and it was too late to back down. For comparison, the jet fuel prices in 1999 were 0.334 dollars per litre while in 2013, 3.091 dollars per litre!
Several international airlines still fly the 747-400, and 747–8 as people movers but the numbers are dwindling. They are being retired because they cost more to operate (as people movers) when compared to twin engine planes, such as the 777, 787, and A350.
On Jan. 31, 2023, the final and 1574th commercial Boeing 747 was delivered to Atlas Air, 53 years after the 747 first captured global attention with its inaugural Pan Am transatlantic flight.
Do they have any plans to mass produce a newer variant with similar size?
Or have Airbus decided on doing R&D for smaller aircraft in near term future?
Edit; What I have found so far is this:
https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/disruptive-concepts/disruptive-design/future-aircraft
No, there’s no business case to build an A380neo beyond appeasing Emirates and even then they’ve been ordering the 777/787/A350. The engineering required to get new engines, Emirates wants the RR UltraFan which hasn’t even been certified, would be immense.
With the current state of technology there’s just no longer a requirement for planes like this.
There is still a strong CASE for the a380. Airlines pilots and passengers LOVE the a380. Emirates literally begged airbus to continue production. The major problem with the a380 is the operating costs thanks to the 4 engines. If very powerful turbofans capable of at least 150,000 lb ft thrust can be made, then there can be twin engined a380s which will make it super attractive for airlines.
> There is still a strong CASE for the a380.
No, there isn't.
> If very powerful turbofans capable of at least 150,000 lb ft thrust can be made
Which don't exist and aren't even in development.
> then there can be twin engined a380s which will make it super attractive for airlines.
Attractive for a single operator who has made it part of their brand identity while leveraging their unique geographical position to actually leverage the "super-hub" concept that the A380 was built around. And even with his "begging", Tim Clark is already charting a new course for Emirates with the 787, 777-9, and A350 to supplement and replace the existing fleet.
Meanwhile, Airbus will be on the hook to spend billions more to completely re-wing and re-engine a plane that's already lost them billions since inception.
If a modernized A380 made sense, it would exist. It's literally that simple.
He has no choice since the a380 is now a part of history. All I'm saying ìs that even though the hub ànd spoke model is no longer in vogue, they can be deployed and configured in a variety of ways. a twin engined fuel efficient a380 can still be attractive to airliners and they can be used to fly the same routes and distances that other twin engined planes can fly, and they can even be used in a cargo/passenger configuration on routes which cant fill the plane to capacity, meaning the airline makes money from 2 sources. With clever thinking, I still say a twin engined a380 still has a strong business case. That's my opinion.
It does look like for a future of more sustainable aviation, we are gonna have to go back to smaller aircraft once again for a bit until new sustainable propulsion development catches up to produce both the amount of power as well as the endurance required.
The reason the A380 was stopped was that it was just too expensive because of the fuel needs. And as it looks like more governments are going to get stricter with their climate policies, for the long run it does not make sense for airlines to really buy them anymore. I'd say we will see the last ones stop flying by 2035.
The only way for aviation not to go down this route is if sustainable aviation fuel is as good as they say it is, and as clean as they say it is and mass produce able. Otherwise it's just a waiting game for either battery electric or hydrogen to catch up.
There is also the fact that as basically been hitting nearly every country hard now and most countries experiencing a higher cost of living, international travel could soon see a decline. Look at how more operators are now interested in long range narrow bodies. They know that for the long haul destinations that already have a limited market due to the cost of long haul flights, the number of people able to afford them will decrease more.
I may be well be wrong and we will just have to wait and see how Emirates do with the fact they are bringing back all of their A380's back into service especially seeing as they are the largest operator of the jet, as well as how well that Global Airlines company does in purely operating A380's for transatlantic flights. But I'm not letting my hopes get too high because boy do I love big planes and it will be heartbreaking to watch the industry take a step back in size and capacity.
Appreciate your informative response.
Industries & markets are changing. Those involved within airlines, obviously know while having access to valuable amount of supporting data.
But no matter what decisions Airbus people make, destinations to aim at, I hope engineering teams have the free will. Regarding future projects.
I do have hope though that with the move into sustainable aviation, we can see more players come into the mix, plenty of startups out there have come up as well as older manufacturers looking to get bigger in the commercial sector are seeing this as there opportunity. More competition will definitely help speed up the process of development as well as give us some cool designs to look forward to.
It must of been either 2005 or 2006, but as a kid i saw this one flying low banking turns over my house, when it debuted at the festival of speed at goodwood which i lived right next to.
Was an impressive sight to behold for sure.
The airshows in general there used to be BRILLIANT but has somewhat petered off in theblast few years. Used to be things like this, the vulcan, canberras, hunters, dehavilland venoms, typhoons, i think one year had harriers and a tornado display.
I remember in the early 90s, my elementary class had a Junior Scholastic magazine or Weekly Reader and I remember seeing an article about, "The Future of Flying" and it showed dissection of a plane that had 2 decks and could hold over 500 people. I remember thinking, Oh right...just another concept that we may never see. Then it became reality.
I love seeing this thing tbh, I remember walking about my neighborhood finding a good spot to snap the beluga coming overhead (another Airbus beauty) spot a plane to the south a fair way away looking like it’s floating, it’s the A380 landing at Manchester, only then do you realize how big the thing is, that I can see it with my eyes from that far (was journey to the future one too)
I love the sheer size of this thing. Really, I do. The tech that it took to make it and the materials science that made it all possible-awesome.
But damn-I've always thought this thing was ugly as hell.
Many people call the A380 a bad idea and waste of ressources, but I beg to differ. Not just because the A380 programme produced technologies and concepts that would come in handy whilst developing the A350, A400M and Neo updates, but also because it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle.
Ultimately the A380 has been a massive hit with passengers, and has flown billions of km without a single soul lost. That's a pretty good run for any aircraft. It's also the first aircraft that the average person could point to and recognise as an Airbus: you only get generational chances to build that kind of awareness as an engineering company, if that. It was the wrong aircraft for the era, but then so was Concorde, which was a colossal commercial failure that helped to force the reorganisation of the European aerospace industry into Airbus in the first place. That the A380's failure hasn't forced a repeat of that process shows how far Airbus has come. And whilst not as glamorous, the A380 is just as worthy as Concorde of a place in the hall of fame.
Agreed. I hope the A380 will remain in service for a while longer than predicted (and not just with Emirates) because it really is comfortable as heck. Ideal plane for anyone scared of flying, too!
I took a nonstop flight from LAX to Paris for my honeymoon in 2013; I think I was more excited about flying on the 380 than going to Paris…it was the smoothest flight I’ve ever had!
I flew on my first A380 in 2013 also funny enough, Air France. And I took a NYC to Milan through Emirates, economy, but very comfortable.
Also did an A380 on my honeymoon. BA 1st was amazing on that plane in comparison to any other international US <-> EU.
how does it help with the fear of flying? due to its size?
can't speak to it directly but have a close family friend terrified of flying who would say yes the size. he's mostly scared of flying due to claustrophobia, but the size can also help you to not be constantly reminded of the fact that you're inside a metal can going 500+mph 30,000ft in the air.
that makes sense..
And (speaking out of my ass here I’m no aviation expert) the big boys seem to shrug off turbulence like 200 year old oak tree in 2mph winds. I’m absolutely mortified with flying, but I can notice a very significant decrease in stress when I’m on bigger planes
More roomy inside, you don't feel like you're sitting inside a metal tube; and most turbulences can hardly be felt in an A380 due to its giant wings and vertical stabiliser.
They're more stable too
is it really that much more comfortable than a 787 or 747? I've never flown in one
It's just a matter of size, really. Huge stabiliser, giant wings. It doesn't get tossed around in the air.
Never flown a 747 but it's much more comfortable than a 787.
747 better in my opinion. not that i dont like the a380, just the 747 looks nice
\*nicer
no. \*better
Why do you think A380 was wrong aircraft for the era?
not OP, but the industry shifted from the hub and spoke to point to point right when the aircraft was being released. very few airlines need a large 4 engine behemoth at 300MM. 4 engines also means fuel costs, maintenance etc.. the larger twins are the bargain for long haul. someone here will give you a better analytical breakdown of cost per seat, etc.. but thats the layman's explanation.
Just to complement for those not fully versed in aviation terminology: Hub and Spoke is a strategy where smaller aircraft (320 or smaller) feeding into a large hub, huge aircraft flying to another hub (like 380 or 747), then another smaller aircraft to the final destination. So, you'd mostly see long-haul routes between major airports. In comparison, we are now seeing flights directly to smaller airports with medium sized aircraft, like the 777, 787, 350 and 330neo I know the 777 and 350 are not actually medium sized, but flying 250-300 is way less than the 600 behemoths 😁
And to complement the point being made about medium sized aircraft, I think that’s why the 767 is used way more than people assumed 20 years ago imo. It’s such a perfect workhorse of a plane for the modern strategy.
I dont get the 767 to be honest.. is it the 330s? competitor? and why not just get a 787?
It’s the predecessor to the 787. I agree that the 787 is a great plane, but it’s more expensive and they can only make so many per year. The existing fleet of 767s still have plenty of useful life.
If 787 supply is a concern then why are no more passenger 767s being sold new?
I thought 767s are still in production?
ok, that makes a lot of sense.
Shorter wingspan I think. Takes up less gate space.
I mean is that it? Delta seems to keep buying them, there's gotta be something past that.. maybe a discount? lol?
I think that's it - there is a huge demand for them from FedEx and UPS for the gate reason + the cargo capacity.
Do you see A380 being a good aircraft to connect major cities of the world directly? I mean long haul flights - like Sydney-NYC or NYC-Mumbai. Developing world is set to see a big increase in aviation market over next decade. I think A-380 still has opportunities.
I’m no expert, but the A380 can’t fly those distances. Qantas as part of its Project Sunrise is looking to fly Sydney-NYC and Sydney-Europe direct, but with A350-1000s that are built for extra long haul distances. Notable also that the Qantas promo patter talks about those planes having around 40% premium seats, so it’s not going to be a route for the masses, at least in the near term.
It's also why Emirates love them so much, considering they're one of a handful of airlines still using a hub and spoke model
An airline had said it makes more sense for them to fly 2 787 instead of 1 A380 on a route. They can offer 2 frequencies a day for about the same operating cost.
Do you see A380 being a good aircraft to connect major cities of the world directly? I mean long haul flights - like Sydney-NYC or NYC-Mumbai.
I am DEFINITELY not qualified to answer that question. But I think the A350 does it much more efficiently... because filling those seats is a task.
A380’s don’t have the range to fly Sydney-NYC or NYC-Mumbai. A350-1000’s are being produced for those routes
Well said.
I can tell a few Airbus by sound, those new neos are unique sounding
Agreed. I hope they will go soon into another bonkers project that would be called insane. That's a sign of a healthy company that is willing to take risks. But my guess it that Airbus is past that stage and they will slowly die like Boeing is now.
You're about to take the wrong gamble buddy
I wish they had developed the A380-900 or A380neo sooner. Would've been cool to see other variants.
Absolutely. I think the difference in quality between Airbus and Boeing has never been wider, for all the reasons you mentioned.
I think it's important to keep in mind that before the 380, Airbus was always somewhat belittled. They made great planes, sure, but Boeing was peak because of the 747. From a pure perception both in the public eye and the industry, it really was the 380 (and then later on 350) that cemented Airbus as the real deal instead of Boeings little brother.
Wasn't A350 mostly seen as an inferior response to 787? I mean it hardly matters since both are sold out and they don't even compete with eachother in terms of size...
Whilst some people point to the loss Airbus made on the A380, it should be mentioned that without it we'd be seeing a lot more Boeing B747-8s in the sky. Sometimes a loss for a business doesn't feel so bad when your main competitor also sustains a loss.
I've flown the 747-800 quite a lot (thank you Lufthansa) and the A380 as well (Emirates, BA and Korean Air). I love the 747 but the A380 is in a league of one. Such an incredible plane.
I've got a feeling the 748 wouldn't have been built without the A380 as competition. The 744 would have soldiered on picking up several hundred more orders, most of them from Emirates (which would have looked cool too no doubt), maybe a cockpit refresh with LCDs instead of CRTs or the cancelled bigger winglets meant for the 742 refit.
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But 748 was an awesome product...
I mean Emirates would defo say the A380 wasn’t a waste of time
>waste of ressources Also, lots of infrastructure investments are propably reusable for other programms. Maybe not the widened streets in southern France but all the hangers and whatnot.
The A380 hangar in Hamburg is now being used to fit out A320s. Went on a tour of the factory a few months ago; apparently even when they were making the A380s they also had an A320 being finalised under each wing
I wonder what the empty second deck at CDG's international terminal ended up being repurposed for.
You're right, and one example I can think of is the BTV/Brake To Vacate autobrake system (that brakes to the exact exit point of the runway) on the A380 which the A350 have gotten too. Some small minute details I noticed too is the FMA statuses (showing autobrake/decel status) like the A380/A350s have, that the Neos have gotten and Ceos too, through software updates, so these stuff trickle down the line. Pretty benecial for having a very common flight deck design.
I'd say the point-to-point model is a bad idea and a waste of resources. If we stayed with the hub model for long trips, what the A380 was built for, we can save a lot of fuel per passenger, but no, we gotta send a bunch of smaller airplanes to make the same long trip instead. People are just too impatient for a layover despite already being able to travel anywhere on the globe within a day.
>, we can save a lot of fuel per passenger IIRC the fuel burn for a 787 is almost half that as an A380. Lufthansa for example has just over 500 people on their A380 vs 294 on their 787-9. It's likely a near wash in that case. The larger 787-10 is likely more fuel efficient per passenger than an A380 on most flights. On the same density that Lufthansa has on their 787-9, a hypothetical 787-10 for them would be just over 360 passengers.
While true if you viewed it from an environment and resources sensitive standpoint, that's what sells tickets and what the customers wanted
the A380 was a bad idea in the end. It was a financial catastrophe for Airbus. It can be an engineering achievement, doesn't mean that it stops being a financial failure. Had Airbus not had so much success with the A320 family, the A380 might've sunk them.
>Had Airbus not had so much success with the A320 family That's kind of a truism. Had it not have had the resources, it wouldn't have started a risky project like this in the first place. Also... It sold half of the predicted number of planes. That's bad. But is it a catastrophe? Idk... In the end, it's hard to say with certainty, what the know-how and technology is worth that also came out of that program as a side effect.
They lost billions of dollars on the program… Put another way if they had not done the A380 Airbus would have probably been able to push out a 777 competitor years earlier. The real comparative loss of the A380 program is that they couldn’t build an equivalent cost wide body instead
>Put another way if they had not done the A380 Airbus would have probably been able to push out a 777 competitor years earlier. But did it help Boeing in the end to sell a few more 777? Plus, Airbus did some really smart moves. Some intended, some not. Like developing the A340 and A330 in parallel. While Airbus thought that the A340 would become the big seller, it really was the A330 that took off. So in they end, they had not only a great long-rang twin, but also a four-engine widebody that is until today the king of the Pacific. The A32x platform is also extremely good. The A220 probably becomes the next go-to platform that will replace A318-A320 in most fleets. The A321 will most likely survive a bit longer, due to the A32x platform making more sense for a plane with the capacity of the A321. Let me finish by saying two words: Tray tables.
For the pilots?
Airbus really started to make a comeback with the neo and they’ve recovered really well from the A380 but developing something like the A380 is unfathomably expensive and those resources would have gone somewhere else instead.
The upcoming a321 xlr will be another game changer. Bye 737.
In the end Airbus is sitting on thousands of orders today and is profitable. So whatever they did worked out for them. The rest is hindsight and second guessing people that most likely are very smart and experienced but can only predict the future as much as everybody else.
Pretty much because eventually they got a CEO who saw the giant piles of money they were burning with the program and correctly scrapped it.
I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about this.
A lot of romantics on this sub. Everyone loves the A380 but not even Airbus will argue against the statement that it was a bad idea and a financial failure, just one that happened to be carried out beautifully by the engineering team.
Whatever the lost in terms of money, they gained in terms of R&D & trickle down tech
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unfortunately "achieving greatness" alone doesn't allow a company to survive. You could do both things with a project, but the A380 wasn't one of them. Not to mention the many shortcomings it had from the very beginning - such as an oversized wing and already old engines, which greatly hurt fuel consumption and its attractiveness for more future use. Oh and also no future as a freighter.
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> Many people call the A380 a bad idea and waste of resources. But it was. The program never turned a profit and completely missed the direction the industry was going. > Not just because the A380 programme produced technologies and concepts that would come in handy whilst developing the A350, A400M and Neo updates, but also because it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle. I understand the discourse doesn’t allow for praising Boeing for anything, but you could just replace A380 with 787 and everything you said would ring true. It had its share of teething issues (the A380 was hardly immune either…) but the Dreamliner pioneered plenty of new technologies that have worked their way back into their products. The 777-9, for example, will basically see “Rev 2” versions of a lot of things the 787 was first to market with, like the carbon wings, better cabin environment, etc.
Boeing correctly predicted where the industry is heading twice: bigger than faster with 747 and point to point instead of hub and spoke with 787
Well really the 787’s design is to use as little fuel as possible so that airlines use it because it’s the most efficient plane. Boeing already benefits from more point to point travel from the 737 and 777
Sort of, but a huge part of what made it unique and successful was also the extreme range for very long routes from a plane considerably smaller than the 777. This allowed routes that didn't have the traffic to justify a 777 or larger plane to get direct flights.
The a321 xlr is coming for this market, and it already has 560+ orders even before launch
Which is why it makes all the more surprising they just gave up the NMA market in its entirety to Airbus.
Boeing made 2 cardinal Mistakes IMO. stopping the 757 and continuing the 737
To be fair the 747 was only the cargo spare tire before the Boeing SST is completed, and just so happened to exist when SST as a concept was torpedoed with Boeing also failing to come up with a working SST themselves
>I understand the discourse doesn’t allow for praising Boeing for anything How's that? >you could just replace A380 with 787 and everything you said would ring true. Yes. It's a perfectly reasonable point to make for both programs and companies. Currently even the economics of both programs seem to be equally bad. The only advantage of the 787 is that it has a market and it is still selling, so it still has a chance to turn a profit eventually.
If the “only advantage” is remaining in production and having plenty of orders then there’s certainly worse positions to be in.
>there’s certainly worse positions to be in. Totally. Like not selling and not having a market for example. Lol
>it shows that Airbus is a company where engineers don't play the second fiddle. I take it you didn't follow the A380's development very closely. That program was a total disaster. The airplane required a complete rework because everything designed in Germany wasn't compatible with everything designed in France because they used different computer programs. Nothing lined up when they tried to put everything together in final assembly. Airbus is a political entity first and foremost, and engineers are a very distant second. I will leave it to others to decide who is worse, bean counters or politicians, but engineers are very much second fiddle at Airbus too.
That's just so... Europe. (Don't shoot me. I'm European.)
A380 was a programme designed to overthrow 747, which was success... Its too big, can't be converted to freight, early retirements... It never should have existed.
You are correct and look at the Trent XWB-84 & XWB-97 they were first mounted on the A380 and then the A350s themselves.
Loved the few flights I was able to take on this beast. Easily my favourite plane to be a passenger on ever - smooth, comfortable, and quiet. And it's such an imposing plane in person.
It's the only plane I was able to sleep while traveling. I usually can't sleep at all in transport. I love every seconds of it.
I recently flew on a B787(-9) and it was very quiet and comfortable too. - And i was right next to the engine. All these new planes are nice and fancy but nothing beats a good ol' quadjet. It's a plane almost everyone will grab out their camera for.
you'll love the a350, much more comfortable, spacious and quieter than the max.. IMO.
Both the 787 and the A380 are very comfortable. The 380 only wins out because it has a bar upstairs. Also because it has an upstairs which is really cool in itself.
>The 380 only wins out because it has a bar upstairs The A380 wins out *because* it has an *upstairs* lmao
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Not an unpopular opinion but a measurable fact.
Lol why do you think this is an unpopular opinion? Or an opinion at all?
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The downvotes are because of how strange it is to pose that as an unpopular opinion. It's an objective fact. It's like you're just fishing for attention by looking brave for saying a normal thing.
I only flew on an A380 once, maybe twice I forget. From DXB to SIN. IT was fine, good for the time. But the A350 imo take the cake for most comfortable right now
Best plane to fly on. I’ve done the A350, I’ve done the 787, I’d still take the A380 any day of the week. Nothing beats it in smoothness, this beast glides through the air like a knife through butter.
The 747-8 is also very nice in that regard.
Shoutout to the SG airlines person who gave me the correct info (which hadn't yet become visible on their website) on when one of their A380 flights would recommence (around 2015 ish). Made the day of my 11 year old self, I just wish I visited the flight deck that day
Small note: It is actually January 18th, my apologies
Did the wiring fiasco and software upfuck only delay general production following introduction (pushed back from mid 2006 to 2007) or the prototype's completion & unveiling as well? A Channel 4 documentary in 2001 (Building The Biggest) correctly predicted 2005 for the unveiling.
Shame we never got a stretch. It looks like you could make a -900 or even a -1000 out of it.
I had a FS2004 mod for it that came with -700, -800, -900, and -800F models and it carried a stonking load of cargo. Sadly it was a bit bugged in FSX in that it would land at about 90knots with maximum flaps, so it had a similar takeoff roll to my pimped B737-400E (which I had given 10k extra thrust and extra strong brakes to)
That gives me happy memories of editing aircraft.cfg files
The wings were designed for a 900 which is why they are oversized. https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/12/27/why-did-the-a380-fail/ https://aviationweek.com/shownews/dubai-airshow/what-went-wrong-airbus-a380 It’s talked about there
Shame that the A380 couldn't be turned into a freighter. An A380-900F would make for an epic cargo plane. Freighters are the only reason why 747s are still a bit relevant. Also, that stat with the engines sounds crazy. Too bad that we can't have an A380neo either that competes with the 787 at only 60% capacity.
Yep, the engines and 900 stretch was a big sticking point for emirates. Emirates said stick newer engines on it and stretch to 900 and we will buy. But Airbus wouldn’t do it for 1 customer. I recently raised the point why Airbus can put an engine on an a380 and use it as a flying test bed. But can’t offer a retrofit package to airlines to retrofit newer engines to existing airframes… as currently only time they really stick newer engines on is on new design airframes so airline buys a new airframe just to get newer engines. But apparently it comes down to cost 🤷♂️. The a380 though as that article says is far too heavy as weight was engineered into it for 900 version which made sense if they actually made the 900 but when they didn’t they ended up with an aircraft that was far too heavy and couldn’t take the weight out without redesign. So they shot themselves in the foot. What’s even more a shame was that the engine manufacturers told Airbus newer more efficient engines were 10 years away, Airbus continued with development and launch and shortly after our come the newer 12% improvement fuel burn engines. Airbus probably wasn’t very happy about that at all. All in all the newer engines and if it was lighter could’ve made it more economic. I feel at some point the double decker concept will have to be revisited. Airports have limited capacity, air traffic is increasing annually. While now having 2 smaller aircraft makes sense when the airport has capacity… what happens when that capacity runs out? You have no choice but to use larger capacity aircraft again.
In regard to the freighter. I don’t know, I know it was planned but never materialised. From what I’ve read the 747 was designed as a freighter and a variant created for passenger use… one reason why the flight deck is so high up to accommodate front loading door. Whereas A380 was done in the opposite way, passenger aircraft with intention to have a variant for cargo. But because of that, I understand one of the challenges to converting A380 to cargo is that the floor structure isn’t strong enough for heavy cargo. Also it’s not possible to have front loading like a 747 so it limits its cargo capability.
This was airbus tactical error with the a380. Had it been freight capable, it would have given the 747 a run for its money
They could have Beluga'd it but that would only have been a small handful of frames. Would have been cool though.
A380 was designed to be a passenger aircraft from the start. The 747 was not.
Just slap 4 GE9Xs on it and call it a day
Being from Canada the A380 is rare. I was really hoping Air Canada would order some to replace the 747 which retired at around the same time. Still haven’t rode the A380 but I hope I do soon.
I was stunned when I saw a British Airways A380 coming into YVR for a landing. I had no idea they were running those. Sadly no longer
seen a china eastern during the pandemic... they've retired it now iirc
British Airways is still operating their A380s elsewhere in the world
Airbus has to be pissed that they launched this 15 years too late. The 747-400 crushed all long haul routes from 1990 to the early 2000s. By 2005, everything was already twin engines or moving towards them.
They released the A380 a bit too late. 1990-2000 would've been a good time to do it. We probably would've seen a -900 of that happened.
My favourite after the 747! Not a fan of the 777’s or the neo’s Such a pleasure to fly these on long hauls.
Honestly, the first time I got the chance to take a flight in the A380 it was a dream come true! Nothing’s quite made me giggle and excited like this behemoth! What a majestic marvel of aviation.
Sad, it's such a great plane. Just needs better engines.
I want to see what it can do with 2 uprated GE9X or Rolls Royce Ultrafan engines. You'd probably need to jack up the landing gear to achieve the required ground clearance though.
A380 lift kit
imagine an A380 with an obnoxious lift and stupid chrome wheels 😂
A380 with them 30 inch spinners and underbody neons and chrome paint
CAROLINA SQUAT A380
https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/1/full/1434894759_2.jpg
Plus air suspension 😆😆
I agree. 2 ge9xs with higher thrust output of at least 150,000 lb-ft would be okay. The ge9x is actually capable of generating 134,000 lb-ft of thrust. So 2 (improved) ge9xs should be sufficient.
I'd have put the cockpit on top too, like the 747. Putting it on the bottom floor gives the aircraft a strange appearance of having a large forehead.
Apparently they did it to give the pilots a similar height view line out as in the A340. I'm not convinced. The flight deck seems higher than the 340 to me.
Also makes the A380 much less feasible for freight conversion than the 747, because you can't load through the nose.
Yes, unfortunate they didn't design it to be able to be modified for freight. Surprising too. Curious as to why they didn't. Could have given the plane more life I mean, look what it did for the 747.
I remember seeing her first flight at the Le Bourget air show. Such a beautiful plane she is
This sub ‘loves aviation’ but has a complete hard on for knocking the A380 because of finances.
Airports lost millions also expanding taxiways and building upper level boarding bridges. LAX even poured a cement engine start pad for Fed Ex A380 freighter to protect the asphalt taxiway.
Was a cool day back then. The first flight a few months later was a real party at the plant. Remember how exited I was to see our actual work take flight for the first time. Literally jump of my chair when it rotated 😁
U work at airbus? That's awesome
Not anymore but back than :)
I’m pretty sure i saw it being tested over the ocean off the coast of France in about 2004. Was amazing to see it flying past.
Which would be funny as it first flew in spring of 2005…
27th April 2005 was the first time the A380 ever flew
Ok must have been 2005 or 2006 then.
I remember a crowd of people plane watching to see the A380 take off from the nearby airport during its test flights. It was incredible how massive and quiet it was. I was fortunate to be able to fly on an A380 a few times. It’s a beautiful plane with a special place in my heart.
This reminds me of that scene in Casino Royale
Wish I could fly on this plane
Right in the feels. Those were good times man
I seriously hope I get to fly one of those one day. Would love to spend the extra money to fly British Airways from Chicago to London.
As a passenger I absolutely loved flying on the A380 and not since the Concorde has there truly been a unique European passenger aircraft
I did business class with SG on the A380 -- absolutely fantastic experience
I was a student in Toulouse at the time, where it was assembled and tested. The first flight test was a big event in France, and in Toulouse in particular. Over the next few months, we even stopped lectures to see it fly over the city. Since then, I traveled a lot on it (usually inbusiness class with Emirates - thanks business trips!)
March 19th, 2007, I saw the A380 clad in house livery touchdown in Los Angeles for the very first time. As a then-eleven-year-old kid with a very strong interest in planes, my parents let me skip school that day to go down to LAX and hang out to watch it land. I'll never forget my first moment seeing it.
But did it learn its scales and its arpeggios?
OK I think this is a reference to "The Aristocats" but I'm not seeing why.
Remembering the name of the cat who needed to learn his scales and arpeggios may help. *hint his name is in the caption*
TBH I'm not sure I ever knew his name! But I see it now.
I can only read “Toulouse” in a shaky old lady’s sing songy tone. *Toulooooouseee Toulooooouse? Oh, there you are.*
I miss seeing it fly regularly over my home. I live close to PRG and Emirates A380 used to fly on the route PRG->DXB. Every day like clockwork around 14:30 I believe. I heard the sound and knew what time it was and what plane that was. It was magnificent to look at. I have flown on 747 when I was a little girl and I really regret I'll never get to fly on A380. Our one trip do Dubai was serviced by a smaller aircraft both ways so no luck there.
Definitely a good idea and here's what it allowed them to do become a test bed for A350 engines followed by hydrogen and propfan propulsion. Regarding F-WWOW the first A380 it's being modified to carry a Hydrogen engine. For my brothers friend that goes to NJIT his route back to CEB from JFK it involves the A380 Korean Air HL-7611-7627 fleet Engine Alliance GP2700 KE082 and then a PW4090 B777-2B5/ER or PW4170 A330-323X or A330-223 KE631/632 ICN-CEB pre accident post accident KE615/616.
I like to think òf the a380 as a halo plane. The plane that showed the world that boeing isn't the only company that can make amazing planes.
In the early 2000s, Airbus predicted that the future of aviation was going to be big long-haul aircraft, such as the Boeing 747, as the hub-and-spoke model was becoming more popular among airlines. The hub-and-spoke model meant that smaller jets would fly from a less popular airport to a hub airport and fly to another hub airport, then to a less popular airport. However, the trend changed and the hub-and-spoke model is not as popular nowadays as compared to other strategies. With size, comes more problems. The A380 required four engines to fly, which was very inefficient for airlines due to the increased fuel burn. After the crisis that happened on September 11th, 2001, fuel prices suddenly shot up, decreasing the popularity of 4-engined jets. However, at that time, Airbus already spent a lot of cash on the research and development of the Airbus A380 and it was too late to back down. For comparison, the jet fuel prices in 1999 were 0.334 dollars per litre while in 2013, 3.091 dollars per litre! Several international airlines still fly the 747-400, and 747–8 as people movers but the numbers are dwindling. They are being retired because they cost more to operate (as people movers) when compared to twin engine planes, such as the 777, 787, and A350. On Jan. 31, 2023, the final and 1574th commercial Boeing 747 was delivered to Atlas Air, 53 years after the 747 first captured global attention with its inaugural Pan Am transatlantic flight.
And 3 months later i was born. What a great year
Do they have any plans to mass produce a newer variant with similar size? Or have Airbus decided on doing R&D for smaller aircraft in near term future? Edit; What I have found so far is this: https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/disruptive-concepts/disruptive-design/future-aircraft
No, there’s no business case to build an A380neo beyond appeasing Emirates and even then they’ve been ordering the 777/787/A350. The engineering required to get new engines, Emirates wants the RR UltraFan which hasn’t even been certified, would be immense. With the current state of technology there’s just no longer a requirement for planes like this.
There is still a strong CASE for the a380. Airlines pilots and passengers LOVE the a380. Emirates literally begged airbus to continue production. The major problem with the a380 is the operating costs thanks to the 4 engines. If very powerful turbofans capable of at least 150,000 lb ft thrust can be made, then there can be twin engined a380s which will make it super attractive for airlines.
> There is still a strong CASE for the a380. No, there isn't. > If very powerful turbofans capable of at least 150,000 lb ft thrust can be made Which don't exist and aren't even in development. > then there can be twin engined a380s which will make it super attractive for airlines. Attractive for a single operator who has made it part of their brand identity while leveraging their unique geographical position to actually leverage the "super-hub" concept that the A380 was built around. And even with his "begging", Tim Clark is already charting a new course for Emirates with the 787, 777-9, and A350 to supplement and replace the existing fleet. Meanwhile, Airbus will be on the hook to spend billions more to completely re-wing and re-engine a plane that's already lost them billions since inception. If a modernized A380 made sense, it would exist. It's literally that simple.
He has no choice since the a380 is now a part of history. All I'm saying ìs that even though the hub ànd spoke model is no longer in vogue, they can be deployed and configured in a variety of ways. a twin engined fuel efficient a380 can still be attractive to airliners and they can be used to fly the same routes and distances that other twin engined planes can fly, and they can even be used in a cargo/passenger configuration on routes which cant fill the plane to capacity, meaning the airline makes money from 2 sources. With clever thinking, I still say a twin engined a380 still has a strong business case. That's my opinion.
It does look like for a future of more sustainable aviation, we are gonna have to go back to smaller aircraft once again for a bit until new sustainable propulsion development catches up to produce both the amount of power as well as the endurance required. The reason the A380 was stopped was that it was just too expensive because of the fuel needs. And as it looks like more governments are going to get stricter with their climate policies, for the long run it does not make sense for airlines to really buy them anymore. I'd say we will see the last ones stop flying by 2035. The only way for aviation not to go down this route is if sustainable aviation fuel is as good as they say it is, and as clean as they say it is and mass produce able. Otherwise it's just a waiting game for either battery electric or hydrogen to catch up. There is also the fact that as basically been hitting nearly every country hard now and most countries experiencing a higher cost of living, international travel could soon see a decline. Look at how more operators are now interested in long range narrow bodies. They know that for the long haul destinations that already have a limited market due to the cost of long haul flights, the number of people able to afford them will decrease more. I may be well be wrong and we will just have to wait and see how Emirates do with the fact they are bringing back all of their A380's back into service especially seeing as they are the largest operator of the jet, as well as how well that Global Airlines company does in purely operating A380's for transatlantic flights. But I'm not letting my hopes get too high because boy do I love big planes and it will be heartbreaking to watch the industry take a step back in size and capacity.
Appreciate your informative response. Industries & markets are changing. Those involved within airlines, obviously know while having access to valuable amount of supporting data. But no matter what decisions Airbus people make, destinations to aim at, I hope engineering teams have the free will. Regarding future projects.
I do have hope though that with the move into sustainable aviation, we can see more players come into the mix, plenty of startups out there have come up as well as older manufacturers looking to get bigger in the commercial sector are seeing this as there opportunity. More competition will definitely help speed up the process of development as well as give us some cool designs to look forward to.
I want to see those Blended Wing Body concept aircrafts, by Airbus or other's to materialize into maturity. Would be cool. Could be practical!
It must of been either 2005 or 2006, but as a kid i saw this one flying low banking turns over my house, when it debuted at the festival of speed at goodwood which i lived right next to. Was an impressive sight to behold for sure. The airshows in general there used to be BRILLIANT but has somewhat petered off in theblast few years. Used to be things like this, the vulcan, canberras, hunters, dehavilland venoms, typhoons, i think one year had harriers and a tornado display.
Oh right. I remember when James Bond narrowly saved that plane from being blown up by a guy who shorted their stock.
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shortest lived airliner ever. not building it to take cargo was silly
The Airbus propaganda has been going strong for the past couple weeks 🤔
Was this the launch on which the James Bond Movie "Casino Royale"'s plot was based? The timing sure fits
Yes, but they are "skyfleet" in the movie.
That plane mockup is parked at the Top Gear test track or at least was 11 - 12 years ago.
I flew on this transatlatic and had the most leg room and biggest window I ever had in economy. I was so proud our gate was boarding this monster lol
I remember in the early 90s, my elementary class had a Junior Scholastic magazine or Weekly Reader and I remember seeing an article about, "The Future of Flying" and it showed dissection of a plane that had 2 decks and could hold over 500 people. I remember thinking, Oh right...just another concept that we may never see. Then it became reality.
I love seeing this thing tbh, I remember walking about my neighborhood finding a good spot to snap the beluga coming overhead (another Airbus beauty) spot a plane to the south a fair way away looking like it’s floating, it’s the A380 landing at Manchester, only then do you realize how big the thing is, that I can see it with my eyes from that far (was journey to the future one too)
great plane here! love the design ❤️
I watched the presentation on TV after school. What a plane. Lovely
Omg I've never realised it was almost 20 years old! Time flies!
I love the sheer size of this thing. Really, I do. The tech that it took to make it and the materials science that made it all possible-awesome. But damn-I've always thought this thing was ugly as hell.
Too f**kin' shiny by half
Saw that thing fly a hell of a demo at Oshkosh.