
Singapore Airlines Won’t Extend Lease on First Airbus A380 Jet - clorenzo
http://www.wsj.com/articles/singapore-airlines-wont-extend-lease-on-first-airbus-a380-jet-1473838384
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the_mitsuhiko
So sad. The A380 is my absolutely favourite plane and I usually go out of my
way to fly it. It's so smooth and relaxing to be on.

~~~
dorfsmay
Smoother/quieter than the 787? I haven't been on either but thought that the
bleedless engines and everything-electrical would make for a quieter ride.

~~~
gshakir
Yes, I flew 787 on BA, the experience was similar to 777. But A380 because of
its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable, sometimes you
don't feel a thing.

~~~
AceyMan
> because of its sheer size the take off and landing is very comfortable,
> sometimes you don't feel a thing

Selection bias? Try—

"Because the A380 is the top level equipment operated by the carriers, pay
scale for pilots is greatest. Ergo, they are flown by the most senior crew;
since practice correlates strongly with proficiency these pilots have a higher
rate of grease jobs." (1)

(1) Grease job = industry lingo for a buttery smooth touchdown, aka, "painted
it on." :-D

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chulk90
Here's some insight:

The recent deregulation worldwide has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-
cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines.
Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and
A380s and even B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all of the U.S. airlines
(Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) are either phasing out or parked
all of their jumbos.

Side effect:

Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at
airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.

~~~
jkot
Four engine aircrafts are also more difficult/expensive to maintain. Most
pilots prefer two engines.

~~~
Symbiote
I'm curious, why would a pilot working for a commercial airline care about the
maintenance cost or difficulty?

~~~
jkot
Two engines have more spare power than four engines. Single engine on twin
must still be able to fly aircraft.

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markplindsay
It looks like SQ is going all-in on the A350 to expand their list of
destinations.

I am looking forward to the restart of their SIN-NYC nonstop[0] on the
A350-900ULR. The discontinued A340-based flight was out of my price range at
the time, so I never had a chance to fly it. I did fly the (also discontinued)
Thai Airways JFK-BKK once—it was neat to get on a plane in NYC and get off in
Southeast Asia.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21)

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tetrep
tl;dr

The plane is too big (600 seats) and airlines are concerned that it is/would
be too hard to fill all the seats.

I was hoping for some interesting manufacturing quirks or something :/

~~~
Analemma_
I think it's still interesting, because (20 years ago) Airbus and Boeing made
two very different bets on what air travel would look like in the future.
Boeing thought it would be mostly P2P and built the 787; Airbus thought it
would be hub-and-spoke and so built the A380. It's going to take a decade or
more for this to play out, but this might be the first sign that Boeing was
right and Airbus was wrong.

~~~
xenadu02
I wouldn't say Boeing bet on P2P, more that they bet on flexibility and fuel
efficiency. You can always fly two smaller planes on a really busy route but
every flight of a 600-seater 1/3 full loses you a huge amount of money. That
applies whether you're doing hub-and-spoke or mostly direct routes. Using
carbon fiber and mostly electrical systems reduces weight which has a huge
fuel savings over the life of the aircraft.

Of course Boeing also bet that they could bust their union* to goose profits
(jury is still out on that) and outsource manufacturing (massive failure). The
787 was almost a disaster because of it. They had to go buy out a number of
their suppliers and bring other work back in-house.

Just about the only bright spot is their partnership with Japanese companies.
That's why Japanese airlines massively prefer Boeing planes and is a strategic
effort on Boeing's part. (It's also why Japan took the battery failures so
seriously: the batteries were made in Japan). If I had to guess, this is also
a strategy Apple uses and part of the reason they buy Sony camera sensors and
helped Foxconn invest in Sharp's display production.

* This one irks me because they're in an effective dualopoly with Airbus and profitable. It isn't a Detroit situation where the union was imposing massive inefficiencies on the business. It's purely an attempt to screw the lower-level employees. People wonder why incomes have been stagnant for so long... The richer you are the more money permanently joins the capital class vs circulating in the economy as spending. The more money accumulates at the top, the more excess capital and weak spending you'll have.

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arcticbull
This is something of a non-story; Singapore retains one of the youngest fleets
in the business (average 8.1 years [1]) and the oldest A380 airframe is almost
10 years old. This is approximately when Singapore replaces planes with the
newer versions. Given they have 5 on order, getting rid of all of them will
leave them with the same number of planes and a much lower fleet age.

[1]
[http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm](http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/Singapore%20Airlines.htm)

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scriptproof
The number of orders for A380 is still increasing in 2016, so there is a lot
of speculations for just one airline company with oldest versions of the
plane.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries)

~~~
Diederich
I must be reading that wrong:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries#By_year)

Net orders:

2011: 19

2012: 9

2013: 42

2014: 13

2015: 2

2016: -

~~~
scriptproof
Your are both right for the orders (till august). That is the number of planes
in operation that is still increasing.

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mastax
Relavent to this smaller/longer distance airplane conversation:

[http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-
wil...](http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/boeing-737-max-jets-will-launch-
age-of.html)

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kozak
So what are the reasons (in short)? The article is behind a paywall.

~~~
rtb
> The A380’s size has become its disadvantage as airlines prefer relatively
> smaller planes such as the Airbus A350 and rival Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner
> that can fly nonstop to their ultimate destinations, bypassing major hubs
> such as London Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi Airport.

(Range seems odd to me as a factor, as Wikipedia thinks the Dreamliner and the
A380 have the same max range.)

~~~
goodcanadian
The range is important because historically, small jets had comparatively
short ranges. The pattern used to be to use small jets as feeders to major
hubs. The large jets would fly between the major hubs. Now, with small jets
having greater range, you can send flights direct bypassing the major hub.
There is not enough traffic on the route to warrant a large jet, however, so
smaller jets with the same range are preferred.

~~~
goatforce5
Presumably doing so frees up landing slots at the major hubs and saves on
expensive landing fees and operating costs at those larger airports.

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stevage
How exactly does the market for aeroplanes operate? Is there a Craigslist for
superjumbos?

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cft
Government planning fails yet another time

~~~
chulk90
Actually, it's the opposite, and there's more than the lazy "Government
planning fails yet another time."

I'm not sure whether you know much about the commercial airlines industry, but
recent deregulation has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines,
resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore,
there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and
B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all U.S. airlines (Delta, United,
American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos.

Downside: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays
at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.

