Airbus Launches 800 Passenger Jumbo Jet 776
voma writes "Airbus, the world's largest planemaker, will unveil its A380, a $16 billion wager that airlines will order giant aircraft to ferry passengers between major airports over the next 20 years. The double-decker A380 plane has a wing span of 80 meters (262 feet), almost the length of an American football field. It's 73 meters long and weighs as much as 569 tons (1.2 million pounds) when fully loaded for takeoff. It will have a range of 8,000 nautical miles."
American version (Score:5, Funny)
Re:American version (Score:2, Insightful)
With all that space I sure hope they managed to find a better place for the multimedia boxes they put under the seats in Cattle Class. If you're anything over 6ft, you suffer.
Medraut
On hold (Score:2, Funny)
Re:American version (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you think UPS ordered [nwsource.com] it?
;-)
Re:American version (Score:3, Funny)
Re:American version (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate flying.
Re:American version (Score:3, Interesting)
Have to agree though, the airline food (Virgin Atlantic) was 'the usual stuff' - and they considered a carb-laden brakfast of banana + fruit tub + Orange Juice to be a 'diabetic meal'; I soon put them straight on that - and down came an omlette, sausages and ham from first class!
Re:American version (Score:3, Informative)
The cure for this;
If you live sufficiently far from a major airport (50+ miles), book your flight from your closer regional airport instead. Bite the bullet on the connection, and skip the long security queue. Takes about the same amount of time, but instead of waiting in that long line, you spend your time in the terminal reading,
Re:American version (Score:4, Interesting)
Obvious Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Planes are the wrong solution for the problem. What we should be using are Airships or Zeppelins. Instead of cramming people into a steel tube, you can create a small flying hotel and all for lower fuel costs than a jumbo. Admittedly, it's slower than a plane, more like a very fast yacht, but people used to put up with far worse in the last century and these days we have tele-conferencing, email and reliable phone systems so there should be less urgency in flying for most of us.
And just imagine flying across the Atlantic whilst sitting round a dining-table. Hell, larger ones might even have space for a small kitchen. We (the species) need to slow-down and make better use of the technology we have. I mean, hasn't anyone else ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? - "No ticket!" Didn't it look grand?
Re:Obvious Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
I beg your pardon, but you seem to have missed my point. The mention of modern communications technology -email, tele-conferencing, etc. - was to illustrate that for urgent communication there is now less need for fast travel than there previously was. If something is urgent, then most likely these chanels will be used more than the afternoon or day or even two days it takes to physically move someone to a meeting.
Now so long as you see the reasoning behind that, then you see that the remaining make up of travellers is perhaps less speed-obsessed than it once was. I also think it is clear that this tendancy will increase.
All of which means that perhaps taking a day to fly across the Atlantic is not so unappealing. Imagine having a cabin rather than crammed into a seat. You would have a bed, maybe a workstation if you are a business traveller. Also, subject to meeting attractive peoples of your preferred gender on the trip, you would no longer have to try and use the cramped toilet cubicle for sexual congresses.
All in all, the trip would be much more attractive for any traveller who did not need the fastest transport available. As I was getting at earlier, these people should be a smaller proportion than in the last century. Also cost is much lower for an airship to run. Some people may be interested in cost savings. Not everyone has as much money to throw around as you.
I hope that explains my point of view better. I would like my Insightful mod now please.
Re:American version (Score:3, Interesting)
When I go home it's about 26 hours in a plane. If they can make it cheaper, I'm all for it. I'll fly Europe to Asia, then hopefully direct to Melbourne (Australia) and avoid Sydney. Perfect for the Titanic on wings.
But, while in Europe, I'm going basically short haul 1 to 2 hour flights. Small, economical, fast.
I'd say there's a market for both of these planes. Plenty of diverse travel types in different locations.
I seem to recall reading that one
Back of the envelope (with some help from Google) (Score:4, Informative)
The current international price of aviation turbine fuel is about $450 per 1000 liters [google.com], which is probably lower than gasoline/petrol prices (comparing bulk prices of course) at whatever airport you are. This is partly because aviation fuel has longer alkanes and is more similar to kerosene, and partly because it doesn't need to be as hair-splittingly fractionated as gasoline.
The fuel efficiency of the A380 has been reported as "95 miles to the gallon per passenger" [bbc.co.uk], which should probably read "95 passenger-miles per gallon". (The mpg doesn't increase with more passengers). Assuming Imperial gallons here (BBC report), and assuming a complement of 555 passengers, the consumption comes to 16.34 liters of fuel per kilometer, or about 225,000 liters (180 tons assuming a density of 0.8 kg per liter) for a trip of 7500 nautical miles (13900 km). That number seems believable.
Now to estimate the price:
A380 fuel cost, for 225,000 liters: $101,250.
555 passengers need about 139 cars (assuming 4 per car). Assuming a fuel efficiency of 11 km/l (26 miles per US gallon), that is 175,645 liters of gasoline, which by US retail prices would come to approximately $88,000. European gas prices would probably make it higher than $100,000. I don't know about European *bulk* prices for gasoline.
Interesting numbers. How does the A380 compare to the 747, the 777 and the A340 in terms of fuel efficiency?
Re:American version (Score:3, Informative)
Why do you think that Boeing can suddenly regain the market share lost on medium type planes to er... Airbus?
In the regional markets both companies are pretty much irrelevant.
Re:Fly where? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fly where? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is what you make of it. There are places I can live, and places I could not live. It is your fault if you cannot see the beauty of Texas. It is my fault if I cannot see the beauty of Italy. (I've never been to Italy)
Airline Industry (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Airline Industry (Score:5, Interesting)
The long haul routes are hard to cherry pick, because they are, in general, handed out by governments, so they go to whoever buys the most politicians.
AIUI, airbus is gambling on lower cost per seat per mile being attractive to the companies who have been handed some of those routes since it allows them to increase profit (or in the case of US airlines, lose less money:-)).
That may give the big operators spare cash to compete on the short-haul and internal routes, or they may give up on those routes as not being worth the candle.
Then there is the charter market. A big tourist operation may be able to fill one of these monsters per day to each of the the big destinations, again increasing the margin over having to put on a couple of jumboes.
It's actually worse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's actually worse (Score:5, Informative)
Your facts are so wrong, and your premise is just plain stupid. Airlines don't decide to purchase planes at airshows; they talk to the manufacturer for months or even years trying to hammer out the specifications, the price, delivery slots, engine choices, etc. etc. The fact that Boeing wasn't present at an airshow means little; Airbus is actually quite known for delaying the announcement of a new order until an airshow (they like to make a big media splash, so rather than announcing an order as its finalized, they'd rather wait for an airshow to announce several orders.) The fact that Boeing wasn't there and Airbus was had _nothing_ to do with the A380 order.
In addition, it wasn't Kuwait airlines that order 43 A380's, it was Emirates.
Re:It's actually worse (Score:3, Informative)
Your facts are completely, completely wro
Wings (Score:5, Interesting)
Right, but .... (Score:3, Insightful)
European industry has learnt a lot from the Concorde failure where the US air lobbies has successfully limited the airport landing slots.
Re:Right, but .... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Right, but .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because of the way the Concorde was designed, it had both a higher takeoff and landing speeds. The engines were also frightfully
Re:Right, but .... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of reasons why Concorde was allowed to operate out
Re:Right, but .... (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a difference between "people living next to the airport" and "people living in the middle of nowhere that suddenly have to deal with sonic booms every hour".
Concorde was restricted to supersonic flight over unpopulated areas - it flew from the UK coast to the US coast supersonic, so no sonic booms every hour over anyone in the middle of anywhere. It was America "not invented here" syndrome at its worst. I have lived under two Concorde flightpaths in the UK (no-one ever believes you when you say y
Re:Right, but .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Right, but .... (Score:5, Informative)
That said, LAX was quoted in one news source (can't find article now) as already planning to make the necessary upgrades for an A380 to land.
Re:Right, but .... (Score:4, Informative)
Gate distances are compatible as well, however to make the bird turn around reasonably quick there's a need for double level terminals and jet bridges. That way one can move passengers in and out without forcing them through the bottleneck of the aircraft stairs. These facilities (as well as large enough immigration areas/multiple baggage carousels etc) is what some large airports are still missing.
San Francisco (SFO) is A380-ready. (Score:5, Informative)
I cite these reasons:
1. The two longest runways at SFO (Runways 28R/10L and 1R/19L) were widened recently to accommodate the wider stance of the plane. They've also checked these two runways to make sure it can handle the sheer weight of the plane.
2. They've widened a number of taxiways to accommodate the A380-800.
3. Most importantly, SFO's vastly-expanded International Terminal that opened at the end of 2000 was designed and built just when Airbus was finishing its design work on the A380. As such, the International Terminal has gates with 80 x 80 meter gate spacing and high-capacity Federal Inspection Service (Customs and Immigration) processing areas to handle the deboarding of multiple A380's easily.
There is still an issue of taxiway spacing, but SFO officials are working out taxiing procedures for getting the A380-800 on and off the runway quickly to avoid congestion problems, especially during the middle of the day.
Re:Wings (Score:2)
Re:Wings (Score:5, Funny)
Don't include us English in that. We can fuck up any big construction scheme. The French, however... Did anyone see that bridge that is higher than the clouds [bbc.co.uk]? That's worthy of a Slashdot story in itself.
Re:Wings (Score:4, Informative)
> Did anyone see that bridge that is higher than the clouds? That's worthy of a Slashdot story in itself.
Indeed :-) [slashdot.org]
Ireland and big engineering projects (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wings (Score:5, Informative)
(There are a few days lost a year in the civil service, which is somewhat unionised.)
Some figures:
Working days lost per 1,000 inhabitants per year. [promeco.ne.ch]
Re:Wings (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.european-patent-office.org/tws/tsr_200 3
jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:5, Insightful)
You might like small planes, but these are why the market in the US needs state subsidies. Take a look at the UK / Ireland and their low cost opperations. All the flights are on 737s or their equivalent. The big operators are Easyjet and Ryanair. This is real no frills stuff, but we're flying across Europe for under $100 return while Americans are paying more than that per leg. These airlines are posting profits too ($226 million Euros for Ryanair in 2004). Maybe folk need to ask why the US government is willing to subsidise a business model that is so obviously flawed?
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:3, Informative)
For instance, The U.S. government has a law (The Wright Amendment) to protect the American Ailines from competition with Southwest.
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:4, Interesting)
Ryanair operate by avoiding the big city airports (London Heathrow/Gatwick, Paris) and using provincial airports. They used to do deals with the local airports, where in return for running a regular service, the airport would upgrade their facilities using local government subsidies. But this was ruled illegal under EEC laws.
The other important thing is to check in at least two hours before departure, as you are given a seating priority number based on order of check-in. While there aren't any seat reservations on the flights, order of entry is based on being disabled, having children with you, and then priority number. It really sucks being the last on the plane, as the only lockers left remaining for hand luggage are about 10 rows away from whatever seat you find. Easyjet actually herd their passengers into separately fenced queues based on priority number.
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the large airlines run their own (very expensive) pension systems which are insured by the federal government.
It's far cheaper to give the airlines support in the tens of billions of dollars to keep them afloat than to let them...hehe..crash and burn, and then have to cover pension liabilities in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:2, Interesting)
Sometimes the price could make the whole difference between flying or driving or taking the train. And I just hope I'm not sitting next to a passenger who takes 1.5 seats.
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Airbus is clearly gunning for the 747 market - the 747 series of aircraft have the basic design and efficiencies of the 1960s. Boeing has let the 747 become a technical laggard, and Airbus has poised itself to shut down the 747 production line with a much more modern aircraft in terms of cost. (many thanks to Boeing's poor management - where are the institutional shareholders when you need them?)
Big planes are great for reducing costs between large cities - say, New York to Tokyo. Or SF to London. Instead of two flights using two birds and two crews, you can do it once. And with modern, efficient, and quiet engines. And that's a huge cost savings all around.
And to get carriers to unload their 747s, you've got to make it compelling. A much more efficient plane with even more capacity is bound to result in airlines unloading the 747. It costs a lot of money to operate per passenger mile. The 747 expense has become too great.
But many flights these days are regional, and will remain that way. All of those 737 flights between cities will remain, and will continue to grow. Why have a 500+ passenger jet fly that can go 5000+ miles fly a 1500 mile vacation route that serves only 320 passengers? A couple 737 flights sounds better in that application.
So the smaller jets aren't going away - it is the 747 that's leaving commerical passenger service.
Re:jumbo jets vs regional ones (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, a Boeing insider tells me that they are considering making a very, very large cargo plane, one that could transport a number o
555 not 840 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:555 not 840 (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect to be seeing 800 seat flights in the next few years that are just going to suck becasue the gates, customs and baggage handling have not caught up. As it is, I already prefer to take a 767 or 777 over a 747 for becasue the stampeede is smaller.
Re:555 not 840 (Score:3, Funny)
They had to take them out, seeing the pilots at the bar kept making the passengers nervous.
Re:555 not 840 (Score:4, Interesting)
And no, swimming pools are not realistic. You can't keep that much water under control in turbulences. Which is the same reason I doubt one with a fountain was ever actually built.
In comparison, (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In comparison, (Score:2)
The A380's "8,000 nautical miles" equals about 9,200 statute (ground) miles. For comparison.
Unveil! (Score:2, Funny)
Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:4, Interesting)
This seems to be just another chapter in a gradually emerging rivalry between the EU and the US. Other chapters have included:
- the great banana and steel trade war
- Freedom Fries vs french fries
- the EU vs Microsoft
- Germany and France vs the US over Iraq (although that may have had something to do with sanity vs idiocy too)
- the Euro vs the Dollar, especially in major oil and currency markets
- snooty French people vs loutish American tourists
- the new european GPS equivalent (Magellan?) vs GPS
- everyone on Earth lead by the EU vs the US over Kyoto
- the european vs US approach to Israel and the Middle East
- increasing secularism (EU, see for example banning of headscarves) vs increasing evangelicalism (US/Jesusland)
Anyway, all this adds up to something quite interesting over the next 20-50 years. We have one very old, very industrialised bloc of about 500 million people who have finally decided to stop killing each other for the first time in history and cooperate. Across the atlantic we have 250 million odd people who have been undisputed leaders of the world for several decades now. Other factors of great interest include the massive US military budget compared to Europe's relatively small one, and the big question of who will adapt better to a world without oil and with a powerful China and India in it.
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:2)
The REAL downside, though, is that even if ChinaBus or IndoBus or AfricaBus were out there with a Jumbo beater - the EU / US war gets so much subsidy from rich goverment that they wouldn't have a look in. SO really the EUUS is just prot
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you can add those 3 things to your agenda, and also
- International Court of Justice
- landmine ban treaty
- America's cup 2007
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to account the end of the cold-war, which meant the drastic reduction of the huges disguised subsidies to Boeing and Douglas and Lockeed whe
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not clear there is significantly increased secularism in Europe. The headscarf thing is more an instance of the long standing level of French institutional secularism (paranoid bordering on religious-from-the-other-side) being applied to Islam, which has become much more visible in recent decades.
The current UK governemnt is slipping away from secularism. The level of protection given to th
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:3, Interesting)
have included:
- the great banana and steel trade war
Canadian cattle ban and softwood lumber war
- Freedom Fries vs french fries
Well perhaps poutine
- the EU vs Microsoft
Haven't seen anything here - but it could happen.
- Germany and France vs the US over Iraq (although that may have had something to do with sanity vs idiocy too)
Canada as well didn't join.
- the Euro vs the Dollar, especially in major oil and currency markets
Canadian dollar is up 40%
- snooty French people
Re:Look forward to another round of US v EU (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think more than 5% of Americans are really dumb enough to ask for "Freedom Fries" at McDonalds?
The Airbus/Boeing rivalry is somewhat silly - but when you look at what it implies: That Boeing has trouble competing in a global market with Airbus. . . "therefore, we must allow Boeing to merge and merge with competitors until it's big enough" - - and soon, there's no more competition in the domestic commercial aerospa
Aha! Factoid measurements! (Score:3, Funny)
How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?
Big is Beautiful? (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
So does one exclude the other? I wouldn't think so.
Well, admitted. It's probably somewhat hard to cram 550 odd people into a 7E7, but where does it say that the A380 has a smaller range?
Personally I think Boeing started to lose it after the 747. Granted, the 767 was successful, but at the cost of a lot of lost 747 sales. I think they didn't sell a single passenger version of the 747 since 2002.
What I believe lead to Boeings "demise" was wh
Re:Big is Beautiful? (Score:5, Informative)
767ER (10,500km range carrying 245 passengers)
747-400ER (13,500km carrying 420 passengers)
777ER (13,500km range carrying 365 passengers)
7E7 (15,350Km carrying 250 passengers)
A340 (15,750km carrying 313 passengers)
A380 (15,100lm carrying 550 passengers)
Re:Big is Beautiful? (Score:3, Interesting)
A relative who works for United says it makes a huge difference in maint times. 4 oil changes instead of 2. 4 engine overhauls instead of 2. etc.
Range: There are very few destinations that are more than 10,000 km apart. What are we talking about? 15 flights per day worldwide? Only so many people want to fly betwen Sydney and New Y
Bloomberg = IE (Score:2, Informative)
Official Launch January 18 (Score:3, Interesting)
The aircraft is set to have "relaxation space, bars, duty free shops". We shall see.
7E7 (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/aerospac
From that article:
The 22-foot-long fuselage section represents the fruit of years of development by Boeing engineers in composite technology. At 19 feet in diameter, it is the largest pressurized composite airliner fuselage section ever built by Boeing or any aerospace company....
The huge structure is just one piece, not the thousands of pieces of aluminum and fasteners it would have been had Boeing made it of metal.
Re:7E7 (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll be curious (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I welcome our massive economy-fare overlords. I fly constantly, but rarely have ever ridden in a 747. If they can take the bulk hub/hub passenger loads, I hope that will drive down prices across the network.
Even simply debarking from a full 747 from an unfavorable seat can take seemingly forever. This one will take a significant amount of time.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Enticing Terrorist Target (Score:2, Funny)
That is an impressive list of superlatives for a vehicle vulnerable to someone with a laser pointer and a grudge.
Re:Enticing Terrorist Target (Score:5, Funny)
American football fields (Score:2)
And its cargo deck is equivalent to... how many Congress Libraries?
Information and pics of the A380 (Score:3, Informative)
You can also see tons of pictures [airliners.net] of the A380, both the ground test aircraft and the first flight aircraft.
Some stats for the interested... (Score:5, Informative)
A 747-400 carrying 436 passangers costs $215million.
Both work out at roughly $0.5million per passenger.
The Airbus requires the same length runway to takeoff and land, but it requires wider runways. Most airports can take the A380 currently, with only some having to expand runways or taxiways to fit.
The 747-400 has a range of 14,205km, with a max fuel capacity of 63,700gallons.
The A380-800 has a range of 15,100km, with a max fuel capacity of 81,900gallons.
That gives the 747-400 a rate of 0.2km/g.
And the A380 a rate of 0.18km/g.
Or, based on passenger numbers, the 747-400 has a rate of 1.02 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. The A380 has a rate of 0.9 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. (work all that out myself, phew). This gives the Airbus a more efficient fuel cost when carrying a full passenger load.
The A380 will be used mainly on the longhaul hub routes, such as LA to Hongkong, London to Hongkong, London to Sydney, London to New York, New York to Hongkong etc. You will see it on other routes tho, its just as good for those.
So far Airbus have sold 139 A380-800 aircraft, half of what it needs to break even.
7E7 vs A380 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's also to important to note that Southwest Airlines is one of the more profitable airlines today, and they run a mostly point to point network. Guess which system the legacies run?
If you are looking for more amusing Boeing vs. Airbus threads, be sure to check out airliners.net [airliners.net].
Re:7E7 vs A380 (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Re:7E7 vs A380 (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they do, but the breakeven point is obviously much higher. Depending on fare structure, it's entirely reasonable for a 767 and a 747 have a breakeven point of 65% maximum passenger loads. However, for the former, that's 143 passengers (assuming 220 total) and the latter that's 240 passengers (assuming 370 total.)
There isn't really a "gravy point" with economy class seating at discounted pricing. A great example of that is Continental airlines flying 757s across the atlantic. Continental doesn't give a rats ass about what's in economy, because, for instance, on the Cleveland to London flight, a half full first class one way pays for the entire flight both ways. Everything else in the back cabin is either profit or an expense, depending on average price paid (and the 757 is a smaller aircraft overall that's cheaper to fly than a wide bodied aircraft. There are other routes on which Continental could fly a 757, but fly a 767 or 777 instead...why? Because those routes get lots of profitable cargo, which the 757 doesn't have room for. For this reason transatlantic flight routes are best chosen based on their ability to attract first and business class passengers, plus cargo regardless of the quantity in economy.)
Super Jumbos are inherently inflexible on this point...since it takes a lot of first class passengers/cargo on such a big plane to pay off its costs. If there is a mad rush of economy passengers for a particular route, the airline is in a far better position to raise fares on 150 economy passengers than have 100 economy seats given away for free. It's not about quantity, it's about revenue per seat quality.
Re:7E7 vs A380 (Score:3, Informative)
Btw the high-density 747 (think 600 people that do not seem to care about knee injuries
Expect the same to happen in China or India, but with the A380. Especially since their rail network sucks (unlike in Japan).
Re:7E7 vs A380 (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? I didn't know Halliburton even cared about astroturfing on slashdot!
I never said oil supplies were going to run out within a decade. I merely said that that prices were going to rise enough to make small planes unprofitable.
I am aware that as prices rise, more drilling sites will become profitable. But the fact that rising prices increase viable reserves does not change the fact that they did rise in the first place!
Nons
Lots of great A380 pictures (Score:3, Informative)
economist.com article a lot better (Score:3, Informative)
Now Boarding (Score:3, Funny)
A380: Made in America! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. 50% of the A380 subassemblies come from the USA. Boeing is playing the "it's an evil foreign plot to topple American dominance of the aerospace industry!" card, but that's just self-serving FUD. Remember, for each $280M A380 that sells, American companies pick up 50% of the assembly work. Similarly, large chunks of Boeing's products come from EADS, BAE systems, and other non-American contractors.
So let's get over the jingoistic flag-waving and evaluate this rather impressive piece of hardware on its actual merits, shall we?
Europe vs. USA, or, is this really anti-American? (Score:3, Informative)
Then there's the rest of us.
I see that quite a few Americans, when feeling nationally challenged because the biggest civil aircraft in the world is no longer American, like to point out how the Boeing 7E7 is more comfortable, takes less time to board and exit, and is more practical, in that it can fly between smaller airports, than the A380.
At the same time, the European pundits point out that the A380 can fly huge amounts of passengers over a longer distance, etc.
And a good number of pundits try to paint this as a clash of philosophies, in that the efficient small craft versus the huge megajumbo craft is what will happen in the future.
I think they miss out the point: These two craft are aimed at significantly different markets. No one will buy an A380 to fly from Paris to London (a few hundred kilometers) or buy a 7E7 to fly from Singapore to London. Sure, long haul routes with low passenger frequencies, such as from Buenos Aires to London will probably not see an A380 and some high frequency long haul non hub routes will not see an 7E7, but that is the general aim of the market. These aircraft do not really compete.
The real competition to the 7E7 is still to come, and has been announced, in the form of the A350, which is a modernised A330, with newer non bleed engines like those of the 7E7, new wings and more composites.
And this is where the real compeition between Airbus and Boeing is being fought: The family of planes.
One of the major reasons that Airbus has been so successful is that it has built almost all of its planes in modularised form in order to optimise components, which means that Pilots trained on an A318 can fly the whole small Airbus family - A318, A319, A320 and A321. It also means that technicians can service all of these planes if trained on one, and that spares etc are shared amongst all of them, lowering the cost to both airlines and manufacturers.
There is a similar thing in the A330 and A340, and even the A380 uses a similar cockpit layout to the A340. And the A350 will be usable by those who have used A330s in the past.
I think a large amount of Boeing's marketing criticism against Airbus is simply because Boeing missed the boat on the new large market. They were actually doing design and market studies togethr with Airbus in the mid 90's until they pulled out because British Airways, their supposed launch customer, wasn't interested. Boeing then went on with a number of utter rubbish campaigns, from the idea of stretched 747X [aol.com] which was then shelved when it failed to garner enough attention, to a ridiculous Sonic Cruiser [boeing.com] concept, which was more of a marketing exercise to take attention away from the A380, until they finally realised that they had to come up with a new product and started the far more realistic and achievable 7E7.
Airbus's planes have been less spectacular than Boeing's, but they offered real advantages in cost (Training, maintenance, spares). Boeing's leadership is where the blame lies for spending so much time on hairbrained campaigns and FUD instead of doing some real product development.
Re:More really old "news" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:More really old "news" (Score:2, Redundant)
With Chirac, Shröder, Blair and Zapatero
Re:More really old "news" (Score:4, Informative)
This is quite exciting for me, I once did some work on a project related to the A380 when it was still very much on the drawing board.
Re:More really old "news" (Score:4, Insightful)
So? /.
The roll-out is a landmark and can be signalled as such by tech sites like
I'm interested in the aircraft industry but don't frequent their news sites as much as some other fields of interest.
Then when such a landmark comes along I find it nice to be reminded, especially when in a discussion forum people can give their opinion about what is no doubt a new class of airliner.
Airbus is in trouble (Score:5, Funny)
That google image link has Google textads for ebay... "Airbus A380 for sale. aff Check out the deals now! www.eBay.com" and "Low Priced Airbus A380 Huge Selection! (aff) ebay.ca"
Personally I find that frickin' hilarious.
Re:Really BIG Gamble (Score:5, Interesting)
And certainly in the UK, and I believe much of Europe also, landing slots and airspace are what is in short supply at airports, packing more passengers on each airplane helps both.
Re:Really BIG Gamble (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Have you ever flown on a 747? It takes forever to load and unload the people and the baggage. Unless they make new gates that use at least two doors the problem will be twice as bad on the new Airbus.
2. That 95 passenger miles per gallon is only when the plane is full. You better have a lot of people that all want to go to the same place at the same time.
3. It is so big. That even hangers for 747s may not be big enough for it. That means new construction. I
Re:Really BIG Gamble (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy For Airbus.... (Score:3, Insightful)
there has been a years long dispute between boeing and airbus. airbus got sponsored while boeing got govt loans with 0 interest, or loans they didn't need pay back (sonthing like it anyway).
imo this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
big business buys politicians. always has always will.
Re:Easy For Airbus.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because the US government does it more stealthy through for example "defence contracts" that for "reasons of national security" cannot be shown to the public?
Although the legal mess that came about after the contract negotiations for new tanker planes is encouraging.
At least this is some sign the US military is willing (or is it forced?) to look further than domestic manufacturers.
Re:Easy For Airbus.... (Score:3, Informative)
Ah, you're quoting propaganda from Airbus. Take a look at US DoD procurement, and you'll see two to three contractor teams fighting tooth and nail for 8% profit, which is hardly a subsidy.
Even if you do think 8% is an illegal subsidy, EADS (the parent company of Airbus) has exactly the same problem with its military contracts. So, the EU/US tr
Re:This is big enough... (Score:2)
As you can see, the mods didn't give your post a flying cluster.
Re:Peak oil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The SUV of airplanes, this A380 (Score:3, Insightful)
This plane will actually use less fuel and cause less pollution per passenger than the smaller planes.
As far as "spitting on the graves" why does everyone assume that the soldiers that died in ww2 are guaranteed to love Bush's imperialism?