Even with runway congestion, a big problem with an A380 successor is that any new commercial jet needs the fuel economy of two engines to have a chance of selling enough to be worth developing. Which in turn means that an A380-sized twin engine plane needs engines with ~50% more thrust than the current world record from a GE9X, which is already approaching material limits...
A new 747-like plane with a partial double deck might eventually make business sense to develop within our lifetimes... But I think a blended wing (lol) is more likely than ever seeing another full double decker like the A380.
We will probably see a double decker if only because the Middle Eastern megahub airlines need it for their business models to work.
Intermediate stop operations would be more efficient (stopping midway just to refuel, if not scramble passengers around to/from different destinations)
MentourPilot made the exact opposite argument recently. The low-cost airlines are being disproportionately negatively affected by current market conditions. Some of those are due to a fluke, and some due to the low-cost carriers buying the wrong size aircraft, and some of it is due to the big carriers intruding into their market.
I fly a few times a year across the Atlantic. On those flights, economy class is typically only 30-40% of the cabin. Then there is a small premium economy section, and the remaining half of the plane is dedicated for business class and first class.
Toronto to Paris has planes that look like this on air Canada:
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Canada/Air_Canada_Boei...
(Supposedly seatguru is out of date, just still!)
* https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-rev...
I am also not hopeful for battery technology as, unlike cars, where we are not weight sensitive, commercial aircraft rely on being able to land lighter than they took off due to fuel burn. In small aircraft, battery storage can work for short runs, but we’re going to need to see some sort of fuel cell system for anything commercially viable.
E.g. Scotland, some intercity flights in Europe and between a lot of small islands such as Sint Maarten.
When this happends, the FAA will have to follow.
Scotland isn't really a market for short distance electric flights unless you're thinking of the Highlands and Islands, where less than 10% of the population is scattered across crinkle-cut fjords.
France/Netherlands to Sint Maarten/St. Martin is, IIRC, served by wide-body airliners because it's both legally part of France itself (at least the St. Martin half of the island) and it's a significant tourist resort.
And if you think the EU and UK have laxer safety/regulatory standards than the FAA, you might want to re-think your position ...
What currently exists, presumably took decades to write and improve and tweak for every possible scenario and is extremely robust. It is also proprietary vital software out of control of both Airbus and Boeing. Meaning it is both expensive and creates a huge amount of leverage on the part of the supplier as no aircraft can be delivered without a landing gear and there is a very limited amount of companies who can produce it.
While the neural nets perform better in lab scenarios it is probable the innovation will never be permitted to be deployed as it is extremely difficult to demonstrate if it is superior and more crucially: safer, than the tried and tested horreondous milion line statement. It could take 5-10 years of further testing and its only objective may be to just have some leverage in negotations (that both parties will know is very weak ammunition).
The second bottleneck is you need a huge ecosystem of suppliers (much like the electric's ecosystem in Shenzhen) which can rapidly and safely fulfill purchase orders. The manufacturing is about the highest most precise manufacturing there is. Just to train someone to install parts on the assembly line can take 12-18 months. Also some suppliers such as CFMA, Rolls royce, P&W, GE will never entertain a small start up because why would they?
They plan production in terms of 5-10 years and they need deep commitments to satisfy their creditors and their workforce. Can a startup sign a 10-15 year service agreement that guarantees revenue for maintenance? Can a start up guarantee other types of corporate agreements on spare parts or engineering workshops or the other thousand myriad different exchanges of information.
These plants produce engines on maybe a monthly or quarterly basis. The parts inside the engines are protected on a national security basis as they are so difficult to manufacture. The engineering IP is a genuine national security risk as it can be translated into jet fighters.
Aerospace industry is about as open to disruption as big pharma is. Its surrounded by arcane redtape such as Airworthiness directives that are designed to make sure no one dies.
Where you could see innovation is electric or hydrogen for short haul flights on smaller planes. The problem is the batteries and hydrogen especially, can be more dangerous than the current kerosene. And again only shorthaul. For long-haul it is likely kerosene is never replaced bar some unforseen revolution in materials science not seen in 50-100 years. You cannot fudge the physics of weight, density and speed versus power output.
The MTOW (Max take of weight) for batteries is vastly higher than kerosene and the energy is used up far faster. The aerospace manufacturers are researching green jet fuel which could be a good way to reduce emissions.
The regulators will never slacken on the rigidity of the regulation. It is so easy to make a minor mistake in manufacturing that can result in a mass casuality event.
In fact for every new engineer that joins Airbus, they are first shown a musuem dedicated to all victims of previous disasters to demonstrate what is at stake and how important engineering excellence is.
I think often disruptive innovation in mature industries must come from vertically integrated companies doing relatively small products. You can't get innovation by using all the same components as everyone else and all the same manufacturing tooling. Though you of course still utilize many, just not everything. For example in the car industry you start with some hand built sports cars before scaling. Your key innovation might be in-house or use a non traditional industry supplier. In aircraft industry you could start with UAV:s and then maybe light aviation or business aircraft.
Right now one area which could be a seed for huge future change could be E-VTOL companies. The technologies, processes and culture they have could change the industry a lot in the long term.
With E-VTOL, which is presumably aiming for local-to-local flights, you have the added problem that if you get your innovation wrong, potentially bystanders on the ground die when your flying car falls on them.
It's absolutely not impossible to do it right (i.e. with nobody dying). But if you do that you need to hit existing aerospace engineering safety standards for stuff like multiply redundant flight control systems, traffic routing that avoids extensive flight over densely populated areas, and so on.
And then you discover you're competing with an unexpected combination like, say, robo-taxis feeding a high speed rail station with 220mph trains running every 15 minutes and your business model turns out to be the new Zeppelin, not the DC-3.
There was a scheduled helicopter between Helsinki and Tallinn. It was somewhat expensive but not unreasonable. Much faster than a ship of course. It crashed, everyone died. They continued later but stopped eventually. They are complex mechanical solutions with very high maintenance requirements.
Smaller planes seem mostly designed for shorter flights, but if I can get a better-than-sober-me stats on highways, and I can sleep in a car while it drives me to another city, why would I fly?
- take a lot more stuff with you
- for families it will be insanely cheaper
- if an EV, it will be lower carbon
- I will have a car for last mile/city driving when I get there
- much better seats
I honestly think the 20 year prognosis for <800 mile flights is going to be really bad. 800 miles flying is 2 hours + taxiing + waiting in line + transport to airport + giving yourself enough buffer + land/get luggage + ground transport. That is probably 5-6 hours in many situations.
So a 10-11 hour drive where you don't have to pay attention and can sleep overnight would be my primary choice if I could do it now. Even if there was, say, a 1500 mile trip to florida, if there is someone to visit along the way, I'll drive.
Anyway, the gist of it is that I think large planes or trips with water barriers are what the industry will end up with, I don't anticipate some massive groundswell of air travel demand for shorter flights in the long run.
With the high expense of rail infrastructure (e.g. transporation in cities) I always wondered if you simply designated a dedicated paved lane for busses if that would simply be cheaper.
But long-dx on buses is no fun. Trains rule. Get some shuteye, or watch the world go by.
The Channel Tunnel vehicle trains generally leave the humans in the cars during the journey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeShuttle
The A321 XLR seems to be a harbinger of the future, smaller airplanes serving more city pairs point to point. Ultimately lower cost airlines will win out because flying is largely an undifferentiated product and connecting flights are just an opportunity to be left stranded somewhere. They add complexity and cost.
But in this scenario there is still the need for longer flights in larger planes and we're seeing that in A350s doing pairs like Perth-London or Singapore-New York. Even those are more economically marginal with the larger planes and making something somewhat smaller with a very long range makes more sense.