
Oversize Expectations for the Airbus A380 - ak86
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/business/oversize-expectations-for-the-airbus-a380.html
======
afafsd
Seems like a rather US-based perspective.

It's true that no US-based airline has bought one. That's because the US has
_so many cities_ , that it makes sense for airlines to serve (say) SEA-NRT and
SFO-NRT with separate smaller planes rather than just one honking big plane
from SFO-NRT.

Countries whose airlines have bought A380s are countries where the vast
majority of international air traffic is concentrated through one or two hubs.
Singapore, Germany, France, Great Britain, Australia, Dubai, Malaysia, and so
forth.

It's true they've sold "only" four hundred of 'em. I have no idea whether that
makes them a profit or not, and I doubt anyone outside Airbus knows that
either, the economics of airliner manufacturing seems to be a pretty closely
guarded secret (even the actual prices of planes are a secret...)

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Plus any US airline which purchased the A380 would get negative PR from it.
While most US airline companies operate airbus aircrafts, the A380 was really
marked within the US as "Us. Vs. them" type aircraft (not least of it as it
was a flagship) where it was American manufacturing under attack (Boeing 747)
by a foreign competitor. So the first US airline company who buys one is going
to get attacked by every single "I only buy American" type, of which there
seem to be plenty of in the US (e.g. "it is anti-American to buy abroad!"
"Don't you support American jobs?!" and so on).

I would also like to add that the A380 isn't really even competing for inter-
US routes as it is too expensive to get up to altitude and you'd never fill
THAT many seats on those routes. It is better as a longer range international
aircraft (e.g. routes across the pacific or atlantic, europe to asia, etc).
The only internal routes it might do well on are for example New York City to
Las Vegas, California to DC, basically high volume and long range.

I won't comment too much on the article specifically as it is quite obviously
bias and had an agenda before pen hit page. I'm sure most Americans enjoyed it
however.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
meh... a number of US airlines fly primarily/exclusively Airbus (JetBlue,
Virgin America) and they don't don't seem to have suffered a lot of negative
PR.

The 777 and 787 beat it on fuel economy, and only NYC is really slot-
constrained. I'm not even sure if more A380s mean more passenger throughput
since the super-jumbo needs longer separation between aircraft on takeoff and
landing for wake turbulence. So what's the point?

Yeah, it is a negative article, but just seems obvious they took a risk and
overestimated the market. When they jumped in with the A350 to compete with
the huge orders of the 787 it was a tacit admission Boeing had made the
correct market call.

Not like there haven't been a ton of negative articles about the 787's
problems, Boeing spent $25b on it and they really need to sort out the kinks
and ramp up the production rate to make a proper return.

I flew an Emirates A380 a couple of years ago and it is a sweet, quiet ride.

~~~
afafsd
>meh... a number of US airlines fly primarily/exclusively Airbus (JetBlue,
Virgin America) and they don't don't seem to have suffered a lot of negative
PR.

Indeed. You can find a few people willing to complain about it, but you can
find a few people willing to complain about _just about anything_ , and that's
how we fill the 24-hour news cycle.

------
foxylad
One factor in favour of the single direct flight in smaller aircraft is the
horrendous efficiency of airports. The amount of time spent queuing (checking
in, enduring security humiliation, and in departure lounges) is usually a very
significant part of the total travel time. And having to do it more than once
makes it more than twice as tedious.

I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a
joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a
queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride).

~~~
ekianjo
> I recently travelled from London to south-east France by train, and it was a
> joy. No check-in, hardly noticed security scanning because there wasn't a
> queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride).

Yet it's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures
taken for train passengers. A bomb on a high speed train would lead to the
death of hundred of people as well. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the
government openly supports the train because it's one of the key investors in
its infrastructure.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _It 's completely irrational why there are not the same security measures
> taken for train passengers_

No, it's quite rational (whereas knee-jerk calls for trains to adopt airport-
style security theatre are not). High-speed trains and airplanes are very
different in their "exposure" to terrorist activity, and in their operating
environment.

For instance:

(1) Airplanes are, relatively speaking, very fragile; a relatively small bomb
can bring one down, and if one goes down, 99% of the time, all on board will
be killed. For a terrorist, it's a tempting target.

Trains, on the other hand, even high-speed trains, are relatively quite
robust, and even severe train accidents typically only kill a small fraction
of the passengers. Trains are extremely long (and the passenger density of
high-speed trains relatively low compared to local trains), and the direct
effect of a blast would be limited to those in the immediate vicinity. The
most you can hope for is to derail the train (which is not at all a given),
and even a derailing passenger-train is likely to have many survivors. The
worst train accidents in terms of deaths have been due to the effects of
extremely specific locations.

(2) As famously shown in 9/11, airplanes can be used as (extraordinarily
effective) missiles; if you manage to take one over, you can aim at a wide
variety of targets. Trains basically cannot be used this way. So if you attack
a train, you basically are limited to killing passengers—and as point (1)
noted, even that is fairly difficult.

(3) Once an airplane is in flight, they're pretty much out of reach. Trains,
on the other, because they travel on the ground, are exposed to trackside
attack. If you want to attack a train (for whatever reason), your best bet is
to place a large bomb by the side of the track, not to try smuggling one on
board. [That this has, mostly, not been done is probably more a testament to
the low "terrorism yield" from attacking trains than to the difficulty of
doing it.]

Because of this, the benefit of securing passengers is far lower for trains
than it is for airplanes.

(4) Because one of the big advantages of trains is easy and fast boarding and
disembarking of passengers, at multiple points, with relatively minimal
infrastructure and staffing, the _costs_ of extreme security would be far more
prohibitive for trains than for airplanes. Given that the _advantages_ of such
security would be, at best, very dubious, the costs obviously tend to dominate
the discussion.

Attacking a train, even a high-speed train, is much more akin to simply
attacking _any_ crowded location—a club, a restaurant, a theatre—than it is to
attacking an airplane. [Because of this, an attack on a crowded local train is
likely to be more effective than an attack on high-speed rail.]

You can cause economic effects by damaging infrastructure, but even that is
unlikely to be significant.

So basically, (a) trains are just not that attractive a target for terrorism,
and (b) the (extreme) costs of airport-style security would not justified by
the (very minimal) benefits. Despite the overlap in the service they provide,
airplanes and trains are simply very different in many ways.

------
mynameishere
Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they're on? Do they
even know before they get to the airport? If I had to choose between an old
737 with a 4 hour flight, and an A380 with a 6 hour flight (including the
layover) there's just no question. And I can appreciate the presence of a bar
in the back! It just doesn't matter that much.

It seems obvious that an airline is going to focus on initial costs, fuel
efficiency, customer preferences, etc. And it's not like they don't sell
liquor on 737s...

~~~
walterbell
Frequent fliers who use seatguru and flyertalk would beg to differ. Not only
the plane/airframe, but the seating configuration chosen by the airline makes
a difference in the passenger experience of a transcontinental flight.

------
dredmorbius
I noticed this sentence in the article: "The A380 was also Airbus’s answer to
a problematic trend: More and more passengers meant more flights and
increasingly congested tarmacs".

Problem is, that hasn't been the case in the United States.

Or rather, while _passenger miles_ are still up over the past 14 years, both
aviation fuel consumption and departures are down.

The US hit peak aviation fuel in 2000. Peak _departures_ occurred in 2005,
likely due to a shift to smaller aircraft. Total passenger miles remain up
since then, due largely to increased load factors -- reduced seat pitch
(spacing) allowing more rows aboard aircraft, and improved scheduling packing
more people into those seats.

I discovered the peak aviation fuel element when looking into one of several
rather unconvincing projects aimed at providing biofuels for commercial
aviation (the proposals simply don't scale).

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_biofuel_breakthrough_less_than/)

Using the US Department of Transportation's "RITA" data, 2013 aviation fuel
consumption was 17% _below_ 2000 levels, and less than half of the 2000
prediction.

    
    
        Year        2000 FAA Est    2014 RITA Actual     % Difference
        -------     ------------    ----------------     ------------
        2000        20,177          19,026                     -5.7%
        2012        33,519          16,003                     -52.3%
        2013        --              15,998                     --
    

[http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecast...](http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2001-2012/media/Table%2022.pdf)

Steve Kopits points out that departures peaked in 2005, _two years before the
recession started_ ,

[http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-
oil-...](http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-
forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers)

See p. 37 of the slide deck:
[http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/...](http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/energy/Kopits%20-%20Oil%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20%28SIPA%2C%202014%29%20-%20Presentation%20Version%5B1%5D.pdf)

I'm long-term _quite_ bearish on aviation.

------
bluthru
Does anyone have any data for which plane is more fuel efficient per
passenger? Probably the 787?

~~~
Sanddancer
It's hard to find a lot of hard data on either plane, but the 787 has been
stated as being 20% more efficient than the 767, and the A380 has been stated
as having a per passenger fuel consumption of 81 passenger miles per gallon.
So, using the figures I found on wiki [1], it looks like the 787 is fairly
considerably, as in using ~75% of the fuel, more efficient than the 787. The
A380 may be a big plane, but it's a fairly conventional plane, all things
considered. I imagine that if there were a revamp of it with more carbon fiber
usage, it could get a lot more interesting.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft)

~~~
ulfw
If Airbus NEO's the engines with Rolls Royce Advance and stretches the frame
to a possible A380-900 I'd venture a guess and say that gap could be closed,
especially on a CASM basis. Provided they keep the production facilities
rolling until such a change might happen in the 2020s.

------
cletus
It's interesting how the airline industry has evolved.

Years ago going from Australia to Europe typically meant going on the
"kangaroo route" [1], typically via Singapore (the Qantas/BA/Singapore
connection last year was replaced with a Qantas/Emirate/Dubai alliance). If
you flew to continental Europe you often ended up flying to London and
catching a local flight.

I visited the US in the 90s and ended up using US Air for a bunch of domestic
flights. Primarily this was because at the time you could buy, as a foreigner,
a number of flight coupons (that worked out to be about $50 each after 3 or
so) that were redeemable for a single one-way flight (within a 3 month
window).

US Air was (and is) pretty much the last holdout of the "hub" airline model in
the US. I recall catching all those flights with layovers through Charlotte or
Pittsburgh (or was it Philadelphia?).

The article is right that many passengers including myself prefer direct
flights but there is some variability here. For example, I can fly NYC to SFO
for as little as $260 coach return in non-peak periods. More typically it's
$500-600. I can fly "First class" (it's not really that but it's a bigger seat
with more legroom at least) on AA for $1100 via ORD or DFW. That's actually
worth it at times. This compares favourably with the $4000+ AA charges for
business on the new A321Ts.

Also, why do people prefer direct flights? It is at least in part due to the
horrible experience and security theater that is modern air travel.

The A321T rollout is an example of what the article is talking about with
reducing capacity too. Once complete, AA will end up with less transcon seat
capacity.

But now there are not many places on the planet I can't get to from a major
airport that require more than one layover. Hell, I can get from NYC to Perth,
Australia (almost the complete other side of the planet) with one stop in
Dubai, Doha or Hong Kong, possibly Tokyo and/or Seoul too.

I remember the fanfare the A380 came with 7-10 years ago and the competition
with Boeing with what I think was the 747-400X? It was a concept that Boeing
lost out on and was scrapped. They dodged a bullet on that one.

These days it's hard not to be on a Boeing 777-300ER (sometimes called 77W)
for any serious long haul flights.

The article makes no mention of this but I MUCH prefer wide body planes (2
aisles not 1) as it gives you a chance of getting a center aisle seat where no
one has to clamber over you to get to the bathroom. Ugh.

Anyway, this also evokes such boondoggles as the LA-SF "high speed" rail,
which looks to be costing $30B, will take 15+ years to build, isn't that fast
and is designed to solve a problem that isn't really a problem. The so-called
problem is seat capacity between these two cities. It seems like the market is
capable of solving this problem with bigger planes no one (currently) wants
and prioritizing particular routes.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route)

~~~
pdonis
_> why do people prefer direct flights? It is at least in part due to the
horrible experience and security theater that is modern air travel_

The security theater part doesn't make sense, because connecting passengers
don't have to go through security a second time. I'll agree with the "horrible
experience" part, but I think the main reason people prefer direct flights is
simply that it saves time.

~~~
dragonwriter
They do if it's an international connecting flight (that is, if the change
occurs at the port of entry), our if the flights are in different terminals in
the same airport, or...

~~~
pdonis
_> They do if it's an international connecting flight (that is, if the change
occurs at the port of entry)_

Yes, that's true; but that's not a reason to prefer direct flights that are
domestic only, which a lot of US air traffic is. Other parts of the world do
differ, yes. (Although I wonder: do international flights within the EU still
require re-screening if you make a domestic connection? There's no passport
control or customs, right?)

 _> our if the flights are in different terminals in the same airport_

...and the airport doesn't have a way of going from terminal to terminal
without leaving the secure area; but lots of airports, particularly those with
a lot of connecting flights, do have that (either a train or shuttle bus).

