
A personal ode to the Boeing 747 - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/1/16820772/boeing-747-airplane-aviation
======
duncan_bayne
How can someone write an ode to the 747 while simultaneously decrying "vile,
predatory capitalism"?

I suggest anyone wanting to read something non-hypocrytical about the 747
instead try [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/travel/747-airplane-
je...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/travel/747-airplane-jet-
pilot.html), for some informed commentary that isn't half diatribe.

/end ironic rant

~~~
crikli
I was rolling my eyes at the subtitle. The article devolved from there.

Some great (sometimes indirect) information on why the 747 and to a lesser
extent the A380 are being phased out, from my new favorite YouTube channel,
Wendover Productions:

The Economics of Long-Haul Flights:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlIdzF1_b5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlIdzF1_b5M)

ETOPS: Explained
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g)

Politics of Aviation / 5 Freedoms of Aviation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqbjA2DC-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqbjA2DC-E)

------
briandear
> Concorde was eventually undone by its excessive noise and fuel consumption,
> limited capacity, and destructive high-altitude emissions.

This is incorrect. “High altitude emissions” had zero to do with Concorde
being retired.

[https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-Concorde-retired-
in-2003-d...](https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-Concorde-retired-
in-2003-despite-having-a-good-operational-history-barring-the-2000-crash)

It might seem that the author of this piece has a problem with facts — there
seems to be a willingness to distort the truth to fit some kind of leftist
agenda.

~~~
briandear
Allow me to respond to the downvotes: the author decries the “race to the
bottom” due to deregulation and “vile predatory capitalism,” yet that very
capitalism is what made air travel so affordable to the masses. In 1974, very
few families could afford to fly. Now pretty much anyone in the middle classes
can afford it. That “vile” capitalism created competition and that resulted in
being able to fly round trip from Denver to Frankfurt for roughly $1000 while
in the halcyon 70s, such a trip would have been far more cost prohibitive. It
wasn’t regulation that made flying something almost everyone could afford — it
was the very capitalism the author seems to abhor.

As far as the downvotes — it’s clear the author has some leftist agenda —
first of all lying about the reasons for the ending of Concorde — it wasn’t
some environmental nonsense about emissions or noise or even fuel costs — it
had to do with maintenance availability. That is just a fact. Next complaining
about capitalism that enabled the masses to travel while attempting to evoke
Hunter S Thompson when describing drinking champagne on the upper deck. How
ironic that the author savors the exclusivity of the upper deck, while
complaining about capitalism that creates the opportunity to actually make
money to buy an upper deck ticket.

~~~
digitalzombie
> Now pretty much anyone in the middle classes can afford it.

[https://www.npr.org/2016/07/07/484941939/a-portrait-of-
ameri...](https://www.npr.org/2016/07/07/484941939/a-portrait-of-americas-
middle-class-by-the-numbers)

Quote from NPR "Since economists first began keeping track in 1970, every
decade has ended with fewer people in the middle class than at the start. And
2015 was the first year on record when Americans in the middle-income bracket
did not make up the majority of the country"

Middle class can afford it now you say and yet the middle class is shrinking
and the poor class is growing. Are you ignoring the inequality and shrinking
of the middle class when you make such a statement?

> deregulation and consolidation

If there were many air lines and now they are consolidated to fewer is this
not anti competition? Or is the market going to fix it by less regulation?

Here's the graph from the 1970s to 2010s:
[http://psf_blog.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/201...](http://psf_blog.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/AirlineMergers.jpg)

Do you believe in the concept of natural monopoly
I[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly))?
If so what's your solution to that?

edit/update:

Something in the back of my mind was skeptical about your claim of airflight
being cheaper without source. It seems more like you're making a statement
base on feeling.

I googled:

Note here's one article that stated that it went up on average by a bit
adjusting for inflation:

[http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-tips/airlines-
airport...](http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-tips/airlines-
airports/airfare-cost-change)

Another article argued that the statistics ignore the outlandish carry baggage
checkin that in fact it is more costly today to fly than it is in the 70s.

[https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/blog/seat2B/2014/05/...](https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/blog/seat2B/2014/05/don-
t-believe-the-airfare-spin-cost-to-travel-is.html)

~~~
jaclaz
>Note here's one article that stated that it went up on average by a bit
adjusting for inflation:

And here is one that is saying exactly the opposite:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-
air...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-
ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/)

And another one (US domestic): [https://www.enotrans.org/etl-material/is-air-
travel-becoming...](https://www.enotrans.org/etl-material/is-air-travel-
becoming-pricier-for-travelers/)

And here another nice graph (typical NY/London) :
[https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/airfar...](https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/airfarenylondon.html)

------
EngineerBetter
This is not an ode.

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

An ode is not a tribute, it is a particular form of verse. I guess people get
confused because the word sounds like "owed", or something.

~~~
qubex
I don’t know why you are being down-voted but here’s my modest +1 of moral
support for having made a factual statement and paid the bitter price for
it...

~~~
ams6110
Because complaints about rigorous/academic meanings of words don't really add
substance to the discussion.

~~~
qubex
I quite like precise use of vocabulary, it makes it so much easier to ensure
everybody intends the same concepts if what one expects to be conveyed is the
dictionary definitions. Apparently the OP felt so too. I think he’s justified
in wishing to draw attention to that.

~~~
lvoudour
It's a well known phrase used appropriately in the article. The OP suggested
that the author got "confused" and misused the word, which is clearly not the
case.

Besides "tribute" is also used non-literally today, the original meaning is
very different

------
Pigo
My dad was always proud of being the main guy on the ramp for the 747 Houston
to Honolulu and Los Angeles flights. He used to tell everyone about how the
wingspan was longer than the Wright Brothers first flight. Apparently it's
true, but I had always thought he made it up.

------
microcolonel
> _At the heart of the upper deck was, thus, a kind of louche and tragic
> nihilism._

Also aerodynamics.

------
billfruit
I think there may be a future for 747 and even the A380 in the domestic routes
in Indian and China. I can only wonder at the huge amounts of passenger
traffic once a larger percentage of the population comes to dependent upon air
travel.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China southern runs a 380 between Guangzhou and Beijing. But it won’t last
forever: china is building lots of new airports to take pressure off its big
city airports and provide more direct routes; while the big city airports are
expanding and aiming to provide more frequent service betterment handled by
smaller planes.

~~~
HeavenFox
Not willingly. The rumor is, none of the Chinese carriers wanted to buy 380,
but the Chinese govt sorta promised the French govt. In the end China Southern
agreed to take them, in exchange for some hot international routes like
Beijing to Paris. By the time the planes were delivered, the official who
promised the routes were long gone, and the new one refused to honor the deal.
In the end, the poor carrier is stuck with those huge planes and no suitable
routes to fly them. They are apparently bleeding money.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
To be fair, the plane was full when I was on it, but maybe that was because of
the cancelled flights (one of them ours) that were rebooked onto it.

------
ousta
another ode to be is for the airbus a380 or more like a swan song. This is a
marvel of engineering that will soon be put to an end cauz its not profitable.

~~~
reacweb
Each time there is an aircraft where boeing can not compete technically like
concorde and a380, they fight to make the market less profitable. I am not
sure there are a380 buyers reading HN, but I think they should not buy
boeing's lobbying. The more a380 are sold, the more profitable it is for
buyers.

~~~
vlehto
Looks like A380 with the max seating capacity of 853 would be significantly
cheaper to operate per seat than anything out there. The current installed
maximum is 615, hinting that the market is not quite there yet.

I could imagine that some airfields would soon increase their per plane
landing prices as a result of crowding. That could make the A380 more
profitable.

~~~
andyjenn
It's the 4 engines which gives airlines A380/747 fuel cost problems. Both
fulfil relatively niche markets and are gradually being displaced by the more-
efficient and flexible twin-engine A350/787 types. We're just starting to see
the secondary market for A380s now which is a good indicator for its long term
commercial viability.

~~~
dingaling
Twins are actually overpowered compared to comparably-sized quads due to
engine-out climb requirements. In terms of raw seat-km-litre they are
therefore slightly less efficient.

A good example is the old A340-300 quad, often maligned for being
underpowered. Now that it is mostly retired data has emerged that it was more
efficient than the rival 777-200 twin.

Where twins _are_ cheaper is in terms of capital costs and consumables, though
ETOPs requirements mean you need more technicians to service a twin ( separate
teams for each engine ).

