Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

The end of the A380

I have had the privilege to sit on the jump seat in the Airbus A380 lately although I was asked not to say on which flight/airline. Both my pilot license as well as my passport were scrutinized before I was allowed entry into the cockpit. You would think that the cockpit is much larger, but it was not and also did not look like it was overly complicated in systems setup. I also discussed a bit with the crew about their preference: fly-by-wire or not. They loved flying the A380 and the fly-by-wire concept and the captain could compare as he had been flying Boeing as well.

Too bad it is discontinued, but that’s life!

Last Edited by AeroPlus at 15 Feb 10:38
EDLE, Netherlands

Nice, did you manage to log PUT hours?(assuming the guys in front are TRIs)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I think one of the very big factors in the demise of the A380 was that they relied on basically one ultra large customer to keep the orders coming. When Emirates got out there were no takers for anywhere close to enough numbers to keep making it.

If you consider that the first two ex SQ airplanes are now being broken up already, some 10 years after first flight, because it was impossible to sell or lease them on, this hits home even worse than before.

Somehow this reminds me of the Eclipse/Dayjet saga, where one launch customer ordered thousands of airplanes only to go bancrupt (or in the case of Emirates change their mind) at some stage, which then collapsed the whole project. Looking at the low figures the other airlines operating the A380 operate, it was an ultra high risk betting the numbers based on basically one huge and otherwise only small customers.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

When the 380 was being talked about originally, few airports had the taxiway clearance to take it. Even Heathrow could not, in some areas. That situation probably persists in many places.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

That situation probably persists in many places.

Apparently all of South America has only one (!!) airport equipped to handle the 380. I think it’s Sao Paolo.

A_and_C wrote:

Passenger expectations have changed and point to point is now the name of the game

Yup!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Antonio wrote:

point to point

If it comes to the question about the benefits of NEXGEN and ADBS to optimize air traffic, I keep hearing from controllers, i.e. Seattle TRACON, that the issue is “lack of asphalt” (hence NEXGEN and ADBS won’t help). If “lack of asphalt” is the issue, how will airports cope with air travelers doubling by 2036, seat count per aircraft shrinking, and number of point-to-point routes increasing? Creating more asphalt is extremely difficult (see Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg). Very long routes are less efficient than making a stop over. For example, a point-to-point flight from Singapore to New York consumes more fuel per seat mile, than the same flight with a stop over in Tokio. I can see the possibility that in 10 years from now, Airbus turned out to be correct about hub & spoke, but failed to time.

United States

The problem is that those who profit from any given human activity spend a lot of their time making huge growth forecasts, and most of the time these forecasts turn out to be wrong. And same the other way round: those who profit from a negative economic agenda like to forecast recessions, etc.

The extra traffic may simply not happen. Already we see a number of airlines in Europe in financial difficulties…

There will no doubt be increases in traffic from China, as they start to get rich and start travelling, but due to their culture they tend to travel in rather structured ways and thus go to particular places, not more or less everywhere like say Europeans and Americans go.

Airbus, like any aircraft manufacturer, know where the business is, and if they thought that in years to come there will be a turn-around they would not have pulled a plug on such an expensive to develop product.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Airbus, like any aircraft manufacturer, know where the business is, and if they thought that in years to come there will be a turn-around they would not have pulled a plug on such an expensive to develop product.

How difficult would it be to restart production? Will they scrap jigs etc.?

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 19 Feb 07:29
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

The problem is that those who profit from any given human activity spend a lot of their time making huge growth forecasts, and most of the time these forecasts turn out to be wrong.

Many times they have a vested interest in the regulator believing these forecasts, too. Look at Doncaster, made huge growth forecasts to get swathes of controlled airspace. Traffic failed to materialise, but they still have vast amounts of empty controlled airspace. Same thing will probably be true of Farnborough.

Andreas IOM
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top