Oversize Expectations for the Airbus A380

Seems like a rather US-based perspective.<p>It&#x27;s true that no US-based airline has bought one. That&#x27;s because the US has <i>so many cities</i>, 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.<p>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.<p>It&#x27;s true they&#x27;ve sold &quot;only&quot; four hundred of &#x27;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...)

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.<p>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&#x27;t a queue, changing trains in Paris took half an hour (including a metro ride).

Do any ordinary travelers care about the type of plane they&#x27;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&#x27;s just no question. And I can appreciate the presence of a bar in the back! It just doesn&#x27;t matter that much.<p>It seems obvious that an airline is going to focus on initial costs, fuel efficiency, customer preferences, etc. And it&#x27;s not like they don&#x27;t sell liquor on 737s...

I noticed this sentence in the article: &quot;The A380 was also Airbus’s answer to a problematic trend: More and more passengers meant more flights and increasingly congested tarmacs&quot;.<p>Problem is, that hasn&#x27;t been the case in the United States.<p>Or rather, while <i>passenger miles</i> are still up over the past 14 years, both aviation fuel consumption and departures are down.<p>The US hit peak aviation fuel in 2000. Peak <i>departures</i> 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.<p>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&#x27;t scale).<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_biofuel_breakthrough_less_than/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;dredmorbius&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1wo2hl&#x2F;boeings_...</a><p>Using the US Department of Transportation&#x27;s &quot;RITA&quot; data, 2013 aviation fuel consumption was 17% <i>below</i> 2000 levels, and less than half of the 2000 prediction.<p><pre><code> 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 -- </code></pre> <a href="http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2001-2012/media/Table%2022.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.faa.gov&#x2F;data_research&#x2F;aviation&#x2F;aerospace_forecast...</a><p>Steve Kopits points out that departures peaked in 2005, <i>two years before the recession started</i>,<p><a href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;energypolicy.columbia.edu&#x2F;events-calendar&#x2F;global-oil-...</a><p>See p. 37 of the slide deck: <a href="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" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;energypolicy.columbia.edu&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;energy&#x2F;...</a><p>I&#x27;m long-term <i>quite</i> bearish on aviation.

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

It&#x27;s interesting how the airline industry has evolved.<p>Years ago going from Australia to Europe typically meant going on the &quot;kangaroo route&quot; [1], typically via Singapore (the Qantas&#x2F;BA&#x2F;Singapore connection last year was replaced with a Qantas&#x2F;Emirate&#x2F;Dubai alliance). If you flew to continental Europe you often ended up flying to London and catching a local flight.<p>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).<p>US Air was (and is) pretty much the last holdout of the &quot;hub&quot; airline model in the US. I recall catching all those flights with layovers through Charlotte or Pittsburgh (or was it Philadelphia?).<p>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&#x27;s $500-600. I can fly &quot;First class&quot; (it&#x27;s not really that but it&#x27;s a bigger seat with more legroom at least) on AA for $1100 via ORD or DFW. That&#x27;s actually worth it at times. This compares favourably with the $4000+ AA charges for business on the new A321Ts.<p>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.<p>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.<p>But now there are not many places on the planet I can&#x27;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&#x2F;or Seoul too.<p>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.<p>These days it&#x27;s hard not to be on a Boeing 777-300ER (sometimes called 77W) for any serious long haul flights.<p>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.<p>Anyway, this also evokes such boondoggles as the LA-SF &quot;high speed&quot; rail, which looks to be costing $30B, will take 15+ years to build, isn&#x27;t that fast and is designed to solve a problem that isn&#x27;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.<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_Route" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kangaroo_Route</a>