If there was a huge market for the plane, then airlines would have been lining up to buy them. A huge market would be the 787, which started production in 2011 and has delivered 789 of them on 1421 orders.
- Needs other engines
- Needs to be lighter
- Needs to be bigger. The wings are build for the long version.
The question is, how much does it cost to bring one (price sensitive) customer to the hub? The A380 was the right idea based on size, but too early and failed on price.
On Airbus side the second biggest airliner is the A350-1000: very light, top notch engines -> 170 orders so far, very underwhelming, and the project of a bigger A350-2000 has been postponed due to a lack of interest. On Boeing side the 777-9 (not yet flying) has even more modern engines, a super light wing, and besides Emirates nobody is buying it...
The order book has depth, but lack breadth. I've often heard the critical size for a widebody is at least 400 sales to 20 airlines. 400 sales to achieve economy of scales, and 20 airlines to have a healthy secondary market. The 777X is not far from the 400 sales, but has some ways to go to find 20 customers. The A330NEO is in a similar but reversed situation: 278 orders for 15 customers (including a couple of lessors). The breadth is nearly there, but not the depth.
I with there was a Sim-Airline game.
http://www.airline-empires.com/index.php?/page/home.html
This is much more slick:
But none come close to the complexity of the real thing, and the models are unrealistic/can fairly easily be "hacked" (print money by giving away flights but charging $1000 for meals, etc).
Same thing for airport simulators.
I named Asian centers. Shanghai has 20 Million people. The Yangtze Delta is an aggregation of probably around 200 Million people. So I named big population centers in Asia. The big airlines in Singapore and Hongkong have declined a lot. They are missing the hinterland, they can't serve as hubs for China anymore. The same will be happening in UAE. Etihad airlines has problems already.
So what are the future hubs for Asia<>Europe and Asia<> Africa?
1. Moscow. Aeroflot is most of the time the cheapest airline from China to Europe.
2. Istanbul and Turkish Airlines. I think no other airlines serves more countries, the new airport in Istanbul aims to be the biggest in the world in the final stage.
3. Addis Abeba and Ethiopian airlines. Addis will be the future hub of Africa (Ethiopia has more than 100MM People). At the same time they will hurt the UAE airlines a lot. Also see: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ethiopi...
Now, I never claimed that there are now A380 flights. But this would be the market, had the plane be build 10 years later and in the stretched version. Not for a flight Moscow to Frankfurt. Not for a flight Addis to Entebbe. But definitely for Shanghai to Moscow. Guangzhou to Addis. Etc. etc. Bring customers from big centers to the Hub. The Hub must have
- good geo-location
- government backing
- enough local customers (e.g. Moscow vs. Dubai)
I fly a lot between Asia, Africa and Europe (All three alliances Gold Elite :-) ). I think I know what I am talking about.
Which is why you find most A380s in Dubai, London and on long haul routes like LAX and SYD. EVA flies 2 77W back-to-back on LAX-TPE within half an hour.
Istanbul doesn't even have a single A380 gate. None of the airlines you mentioned ever flew an A380 either.
I disagree. Since it is the wrong solution for the problem.
> Which is why you find most A380s in Dubai, London
I am not surprised that it did not work for this airlines.
"Istanbul doesn't even have a single A380 gate." Not sure what you mean with this. I was talking about the new airport and the airport is prepared for the A380, see link. Again, the A380 is the right solutions in size, it is just wrong in cost performance because it came 10 years too early.
https://airlinerwatch.com/new-istanbul-airport-prepares-room...
I see a problem with your assesment right there in your assumption that large hubs will still be a thing in the future. It's becoming more and more obvious that this won't be the case.
And please, don't be allured to Aeroflot due to the cheap flights, it's not an experience worth having.
Good service
Fair bonus miles
Super cheap dog transportation
One of the most modern fleets
Very cheap tickets.
Not sure why your experience was so bad. By the way, the stock performance reflects my points. They must be doing something right and they pay dividends.
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/american-reroutes...
Those heading to East Asia tend to fly over northern Russia, well away from Ukraine
Here[0] are planes avoiding Ukraine
International flight paths over Russia are a large source of money for the country, Russia isn't going to shoot down any airlines.
If a plane were shot down over Siberia, planes would reroute away from Siberia, meaning Russia loses overfly money.
Unless the scenario is that Russia comes out and says "we'll shoot down non-Russian airlines", in which case Russian airlines are no longer allowed to fly to other countries, and Russia is cut off from the rest of the world, and we go back to routing via Iran or Alaska (perhaps non-stop). It's an extra 1300 miles from London to Tokyo via those routes, 1200 miles to Beijing, 1000 to Shanghai, and only 600 miles to Hong Kong / Chengdu
It'd be annoying, but not even as bad as when it was the USSR.
Russia meanwhile would collapse economically.
The real problem is that the A380 is falling behind other modern aircraft on its operating costs.
Being able to carry an extra 100-150 pax is nice, but when each seat costs 20-30% more per mile in fuel compared to a 777X or an A350, then most airlines will choose the more fuel-efficient models.
(I'm guessing it may be as simple as there's 4 engines instead of 2?)
There's a saying in aviation that goes something like "it takes a lot of fuel to fly a lot of fuel". Even over the course of a single flight, the fuel consumption rate goes down significantly as that fuel gets consumed. You can fit more stuff in a bigger plane, but it takes more fuel to fly the 100,000th pound than it does to fly the 100th pound, so you only want the larger capacities if you know that you are going to consistently utilize them.
- A380 is heavier, per seat, than newer aircraft designs which are making use of advanced composites, new technologies that reduce the weight of wiring, etc.
- A380's engines are older models which are less efficient than the latest-generation engines fitted to the 777X and A350
- Aircraft with 4 engines have higher operating costs than 2. Additional fuel burn, maintenance expenses, etc.
Obviously some of this could be improved if Airbus were to have developed an upgraded version of the A380 (and Rolls-Royce it's engines). There was talk of both a new-engine A380neo and a stretched A380-900 at one point. But clearly, the market was judged to be too small to justify the substantial development costs.
I have read that the Boeing 747 sits at some local maxima in design space, and to get larger, the Airbus A380 compromised by having a higher wing loading. This would reduce fuel efficiency a bit.
Very few situations will call for a new A380.
Most of the traffic growth is being eaten by the smaller planes that are getting quite a bit bigger: 50 regional seaters are being replaced by 100 seaters, A319/A320 are being replaced by A320/A321, etc. Meanwhile the bigger planes are getting smaller: 747 being downsized to 777-300ER, A350-900 or even 787-9.
This trend is really clear in the aviation business. The 757 and 767 really killed four or three engine engine trans-Atlantic (the single most important international route system), while the 787 killed four engines across the pacific.
The smallest plane, with the most reasonable CASM (cost per available seat mile) at the highest frequency wins.
Case in point with JAL (not sure if they fly the routes you talked about but it's as good as an example): https://www.jal.com/en/outline/aircraft.html
231 aircrafts, not a single Airbus.
the a380s are almost only used for long range flights with 1 or 2 flights a day: sydney-dubai-heathrow, singapore-london, singapore-frankfurt-new york etc.
For that flights, a huge airplane makes sense.
No A380s on this route. There are 32 flights each way, 28 from Heathrow.
BA/AA operate 12 daily flights LHR-JFK, pretty much one ever 90 minutes during the day, it's pretty much a turn up and go service. Virgin/Delta do another 8 flights, again turn-up and go.
That frequency attracts the people on flexible tickets. Those on the cheapest flights they find on skyscanner will probably take the norweigan 787s from Gatwick.
That market for flexibility doesn't exist between say London and Singapore (I suspect most are transferring at least at one end), but there's plenty of passengers looking to travel, and so you get 4 of the 7 flights over 3 carriers are on A380s.
Assuming you have a flexible ticket, which the overwhelming majority of passengers don't.
Tried asking BA/AA to move to an earlier flight on a non-flex ticket? "Computer says no, unless you pay $lots"
Sure, if you're flying on the "cheapest flight on skyscanner" then you don't get the flexibility, but that's why they don't fly 6 A380s rather than 12 smaller planes, they want the £6k tickets to choose BA/AA rather than VS/DL. The £600 return tickets at the back will fly whoever's cheapest.
That's a sweeping claim.
Pick a highly-discounted business class fare LON-NYC-LON for dates well in advance which books into I fare bucket.
I close the ILX1C1S6 fare, out 25 Dec 2019, back 1 Jan 2020. (The base fare is GBP1271 r/t...)
Either do a dummy booking at BA.com, or go to ExpertFlyer[0] and the fare rules. Find the 'PENALTIES' section:
CANCELLATIONS
ANY TIME
TICKET IS NON-REFUNDABLE.
CHANGES
ANY TIME
CHANGES NOT PERMITTED.
"Almost all" then, especially when you factor in corporate deals
At BA.com I've just looked up LON-NYC-LON out 6 Mar back 13 Mar (so just over two weeks from now), and I'm seeing the same complete lack of flex:
Your ticket conditions
Changes to your ticket No changes permitted. No upgrades permitted
Refunds There are no refunds except for any government & airport taxes
BA ran an empty flight from Heathrow to Cardiff for a while to keep a slot at Heathrow.
Long range versions of single-aisle planes also change the dynamics a bit, putting less focus on hubs.
Make it even a bit longer, and takeoff performance will tank so much, that you will need even longer runways
There is a huge market for the plane.
The plane came too early. Build now with lighter materials, better engines and in the long version (the wings are designed for a much longer version, this also makes it heavy for the short version).
Is there a demand for such flights from Chicago to NYC? No.
But Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Deli, Mumbai via hubs such as Moscow, Istanbul or Addis there is.
So unfortunately the truth is, that there is a market, but the plane come too early. In fact, the Airbus CEO said exactly this in an interview.