
A decade after debut, first A380 jumbos to be broken up - Element_
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-a380/a-decade-after-debut-first-a380-jumbos-to-be-broken-up-idUSKCN1J10R2
======
InTheArena
The A380 program was almost terminated this year, and only a lifeline order by
Emirates (which is incredibly exposed, as they have almost half of the A380s
that have been delivered or ordered) kept the line alive. Lessors won't touch
the plane due to a lack of a secondary market (as reflected in this order).

The problem with the A380 was that it was a prestige project formed around a
core concept that never materialized, and was directly opposite of the trend
over the last 30 years. Namely routes were becoming more fragmented, not less.
The a380 required huge amounts of centralization for it to be effective.
Places where that is true - Dubai primarily - it's worked well. Everyone else
it simply is way to big. None of the passenger or cargo carriers in the United
States, which has half of world wide lift, have received a A380.

Several studies have concluded that the only reason the A380 was feasible was
because of Government launch aide. When you looked at it logically and with
non-pollyannaish analysis, you do the same thing that Boeing did with the
747-600/700 and cancel it. (Boeing eventually built a scaled down 747-8i,
which was also a failure, but it only cost them a few billion instead of tens
of billions).

~~~
Reason077
These particular aircraft that are being scrapped were _very_ early-production
A380s which were delivered significantly overweight (rumoured to be >5
tonnes!) Singapore Airlines planned to return them years ago and is, in fact,
replacing them with _new_ A380s. Other airlines don't want them because they
are the worst A380s flying: their extra weight means they burn too much fuel.

Certainly the A380 program hasn't been quite as successful as Airbus would
have hoped, but I'm not sure it was ever in any real danger of being scrapped.
Those rumours may have just been put out by Airbus in order to pressure
Emirates into moving ahead with their order.

There are still airlines like British Airways who have a lot of old B747s in
service that are approaching their EOL. It seems likely that BA will order
more A380s to replace at least some of these.

And in any case, there are still more than 100 unfulfilled A380 orders on
Airbus's books, meaning there's enough demand to keep production running for
quite a few years to come, even if there were no additional orders.

~~~
J-dawg
How does a plane end up being overweight? And how did the weight get reduced
on later models?

~~~
magduf
That's what I want to know, and why can't they be retrofitted to match the
specs of the later models?

~~~
rbanffy
It's not always cheap to remove 5 tonnes of wiring. You need to count downtime
and the cost of removal proper (disassembly, testing, reassembly, more
testing) and compare it with the difference in price of scrapping it and
replace with another model that's, perhaps, a better match for your desired
capacity and the difference in the operational cost over the plane's lifetime.
There are two-engine planes that promise to almost match the actual usage of
the 380 for a lower operational cost.

~~~
magduf
Your last part there is wrong: as covered in many comments here, the A380 is
still selling, in fact to the same carrier that's not renewing the leases on
these early models. So it does still have a niche that it excels at; the
problem is just that the early models have too much weight compared to current
models.

This isn't about the A380 vs. other models, this is about old-A380 vs.
new-A380. I was just asking why it wasn't feasible to retrofit the old ones to
match the specs of the new ones, which these carriers do want and are buying.
I could understand if we were talking about cars, where there's a well-tuned
assembly line and it's almost never cost-effective to retrofit, and the unit
cost is actually shockingly low when you consider the complexity and cost of
components, but large aircraft aren't like cars. (Aircraft assembly plants
make a few dozen a year, car plants make hundreds of thousands.)

------
nabla9
Both UPS and FedEX canceled their A380 orders decade ago because A380 was late
and used 767's and 747s are cheap.

There will be another opportunity when existing fleets are used up and fuel
costs continue to increase. Converting stripped A380s into freight might be a
good option.

Couriers use spoke and hub model that A380 is well suited for.

~~~
mnw21cam
The problem with the A380 for freight is that it has a lower cargo density.
That is, it has a much greater interior volume than other planes, but not as
proportionately greater maximum cargo mass. This is great for passengers (more
legroom, etc), but not so much for cargo. Unless it's a shipment of guitars.

------
gshakir
A380 comfort level beats 787 and others. You will never feel the take off or
landing and no turbulence either. I have flown with Emirates and I am hesitant
to fly anything else. The business class experience was amazing with full
recline seats. Fly them and try it out yourselves.

~~~
InTheArena
I respectfully vehemently disagree. I like EK and their A380s, but give me a
787, even on a budget carrier like Norwegian. Lower atmospheric pressure and
higher humidity, plus a non-stop makes all the difference in the world.I'm
fine, even on a old 777 from the US to Asia, but US to Europe wrecks me on
anything but a 787.

I haven't flown a A350 yet, but my understanding is that the humidity is lower
(due to the fact it's not a true composite frame) so I am more likely to get
jet-lag.

~~~
koyote
I don't think you can really compare EK A380 with any 787, especially in
Economy.

The problem with the 787 is that pretty much every operator has decided to
cram as many seats in as possible. It's probably the worst plane to fly long
haul in currently. The A380 is by far the quietest and smoothest plane
operating at the moment. EK's A380 in particular have ample legroom and seat
width.

I've flown on numerous 787, A350 and A380 flights on various operators and
although I can definitely tell the difference between an A330/777/747 flight
and the planes above in terms of jet-lagginess after a flight, I can not tell
the difference between these newer planes. All three of them are much more
comfortable and have better air.

~~~
sitepodmatt
Agree. A380 economy is much better than any recent densified 777 (Eva air
exception still 9 across), or 787 where airlines threw the Boeing design
guidelines of 2/4/2 out the window and went for 3/3/3 (JAL exception).

------
hodgesrm
>Early copies of a new plane tend to be less efficient and Singapore Airlines
recently ordered some new A380s. However, overall demand is thinner than
Airbus expected, forcing it to slow production to a trickle while looking for
more business.

Boeing had sales difficulties with 787 aircraft early in the production run
due to excess weight among other issues. [0] The rest of the article makes it
seem this does not apply to the A380s in question, so it's more a reflection
of weak market demand. The problem of reselling customized planes is an
interesting issue--so far as I know Boeing 747s did not have the problem. This
seems unique to the A380.

[0] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/internati...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/international-business/boeing-sells-overweight-terrible-teen-
dreamliners/article23190304/)

~~~
ak217
Boeing did go out of their way to make sure those "change incorporation"
frames ended up in working condition and flying with customers. This
spreadsheet shows what happened:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FH3Y2-vRUgojntPkCSJI5Pd-15rsJ1a0SFCRaT-
iqgo/edit#gid=2) \- look at the dates in the "Load"/"Delivered" columns up to
LN 19. LN 10 spent almost 8 years before entering revenue service.

In Airbus's case, the equivalent might be to buy back the frames and place
them with customers at a subsidy. There's definitely a marketing hit that they
take when a 10 year old flagship airframe is scrapped.

~~~
hodgesrm
Wow! Where did these numbers come from? (This is what I love about HN.)

It's awesome you can see details like the distribution of RR vs. GE engines,
just to pick one bit of interesting data out of that sheet.

~~~
ak217
Someone very much into the 787 who follows their production very closely:
[http://nyc787.blogspot.com/](http://nyc787.blogspot.com/)

------
vermontdevil
Five of the top 27 long haul flights are on A380. I was surprised to learn
this.

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

~~~
lostlogin
The top 5 are NZ and Australia - this possibly explains my hatred of airports
and dislike for flying. I’m trying the longest one next week, with a child.

------
mrpippy
As others have said, these 2 airframes are the first two delivered,
significantly overweight and a nightmare to maintain. The frames were
essentially wired by hand, after the pre-made wiring harnesses were the wrong
length (French/German Airbus facilities used different versions of CATIA, the
lengths didn't match, 2 year delay costing billions)

~~~
bodi
An excellent Smithsonian documentary on the whole project for anyone
interested.

[https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/mighty-
planes/airbu...](https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/mighty-
planes/airbus-a380/1003002/3361526)

------
tannhaeuser
It's sad, but such are economic realities. I've seen an A380 flying directly
over my head at low altitude at a show a couple years ago. I was super-
impressed at how agile, almost sports plane-like it was behaving.

~~~
lostlogin
It’s less impressive when it’s over your backyard. They have been trialing a
more aggressive landing approach here in Auckland. It’s lower, faster and
shorter and it’s very irritating. It’s been handled aggressively by the
airport but I sort of admire their handling. They started with the more
annoying option as a test, so any future route will seem like a concession to
public pressure.

They have been encouraging people to complain, then producing stats showing
that a high percentage of complaints relate to old flight paths.

[https://corporate.aucklandairport.co.nz/smart-
approaches](https://corporate.aucklandairport.co.nz/smart-approaches)

------
olskool
A major problem for the A380 is that it is too large for the gates at most
airports and the airports have little incentive to build up for just a few
flights.

------
majurg
Consumers preferring point-to-point air travel killed the A380.

~~~
dingaling
Which is ironic as the self-proclaimed 'King of point to point', the 787,
mainly flies between or from hubs.

It's the smaller and more mundane 737 Max and A320 Neo that are following the
lead of the old 757 as hub-bypassers.

I also note that no reference was made to the fact that Boeing has broken-up
two early, unsaleable, 787s and took a $1.25 billion charge for doing so.
Billion.

~~~
sitepodmatt
Unless list for a 787 is 600m and there no salvagable parts these figures see
way wrong

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm guessing, but they're probably unsellable because they're pre-production
testbeds. Those will cost much more than a production plane.

It also tells you exactly nothing about the market for 787s...

------
kokey
It's a shame these didn't sell in the numbers that Airbus initially hoped for,
but I also think breaking these down for parts make a lot of sense considering
that updating the customer interior of such a large aircraft for a new
operator is so expensive.

I hope Airbus can continue making this model, if they can keep bringing the
cost down as manufacturing of this continues to improve, that should be
possible.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I hope Airbus can continue making this model_

The A380 was doomed from the start. It was built to compete with the 747, a
jet which first flew in 1969 [1] and designed for hub-and-spoke "trunk"
routes. In that narrow aim, the A380 succeeded. The problem is the entire
A380/747 category peaked before the A380's first flight. High-efficiency
engines mean long-and-skinny routes are now profitable. Instead of packing
Chicago to London and D.C. to London passengers into a JFK-Heathrow
megaflight, one runs Chicago-Heathrow and D.C.-Heathrow with medium jets.

At the end of the day, the A380 was designed to be impressive to European
politicians more than to airline executives.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)

~~~
robbiep
The bigger question which is still unaddressed is: with the growth in
passenger traffic, will there be a return to hub and spoke, or can long and
skinny win?

Even if the a380 is dead, food for thought: In 5-10 years we _may_ have a 300
person 1 hr transport from sydney to New York by way of the BFR. That is hub
and spoke

~~~
yock
> In 5-10 years we may have a 300 person 1 hr transport from sydney to New
> York by way of the BFR.

Is your average human's health and safety really compatible with the
acceleration required for ballistic travel?

~~~
reaperducer
At one time people thought that any transport faster than a horse would cause
the human body to fly apart.

Engineering finds a way.

~~~
notahacker
We're in the opposite position from people that doubted whether the human body
could cope with transport faster than a horse.

We have pretty good data for what very high G-forces do to the human body and
what the failure rates of rocket launches are, and neither are compatible with
routine commercial flight.

~~~
robbiep
If you consider that the early jets (ie comet) had a tendency to disintegrate,
_and_ take a speculative view that rockets have largely been in the comet era
for perhaps a prolonged period (40-50 years!) _and_ take another speculative
leap that current technology/space companies are going to improve this by
orders of magnitude (lots of ifs) then it isn’t too far removed.

And the cost of a flight would be 300-400k in fuel, which means that tickets
would be roughly premium economy cost or business cost. Business would eat up
day trip returns from ny to shanghai in a heartbeat. Maybe people would have
to wear a g force suit like pilots?

------
TheMagicHorsey
This is why huge, govt-subsidized projects often fail. The people that
conceive and plan these projects with govt. aid do not bear the full extent of
its failure. They don't have skin in the game. Perversely, sometimes its
better for their career to helm or participate in a failed large prestige
project than it would be to participate in more successful smaller projects.

Europe isn't alone in these debacles. Military procurement in the USA is rife
with the same BS.

And I don't want to pretend like private companies don't do the same thing on
their own (Google Plus anyone?) ... but at least private companies pay the
costs on their own and make the heads of failed projects feel the pain (or if
they don't ... the companies go out of business or get cut down to size soon
enough ... like HP).

------
paulsutter
What I loved about the A380 was the cheap last minute business class seats on
LA/Tokyo because they couldn’t fill it up otherwise, the whole upper deck was
business. Good for me bad for the airline.

------
sandworm101
I was going to make a comment about the a380's efficiency, that it had a very
low carbon emission per passenger-mile, but....

>>> Throwing the loss-making program a lifeline for a decade, Emirates
recently ordered up to 36 more A380s and set out plans on Tuesday to install
56 Premium Economy seats.

Ya. If it is going to live on as a luxury liner, its upper deck wasted on a
handfull of seats, it is an environmental nightmare.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Emirates _needs_ the A380. Its airport exists as an East-West hub. The modern
trend, running long-and-skinny direct routes, cuts Dubai out. (Instead of
Paris --> Dubai --> Delhi, one can now just fly Paris --> Delhi.)

