Several news agencies are reporting on the demise of the A380, an aircraft loved by passengers. European plane maker Airbus said Thursday it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world's biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry's most ambitious and most troubled endeavors.
A slump in sales due to the airline industry moving to a point to point model make risk of empty seats on the A380 too much of a burden to make it profitable to operate.
Still the aircraft will remain in service for at least another 20 years.
https://www.designdevelopmenttoday.com/industries/aerospace/news/21047354/airbus-abandons-iconic-superjumbo-jet https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47231504
Previously: A380 Cancellations by Qantas Raise new Questions About the Superjumbo's Future
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A380 Cancellations by Qantas Raise new Questions About the Superjumbo's Future:
Australia's Qantas (QABSY) said Thursday that it had scrapped longstanding plans to buy eight more of the double-decker planes
The A380 has been a major disappointmentfor Airbus ( EADSF) , racking up less than a quarter of the sales the European company forecast when it first introduced the giant jetliner more than a decade ago. The underwhelming demand has fueled questions about how long the manufacturer can justify continuing production of the iconic aircraft.
[...] Other airlines including Virgin Atlantic have ditched plans to buy the aircraft in the past year. Airbus now has only 79 firm orders for it, according to FlightGlobal data.
The program's future could hinge on Dubai-based Emirates, the largest A380 operator with more than 100 of the aircraft in service. The Gulf carrier last year ordered a further 20 of the superjumbo jets, with the option to buy an additional 16 on top of that.
But Airbus said last month that it was renegotiating the deal with Emirates following reports that the airline was looking to switch its orders to the smaller and newer A350.
According to Wikipedia, an A380 has seating for 575-853 depending on variant and configuration.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday February 20 2019, @04:41AM (7 children)
Wikipedia does a decent job laying out the development of the A380. A quick summary is in the early 90's the major players in the space were exploring very large aircraft, but only Airbus went forward. This ignored evidence the industry would move away from the traditional hub and spoke model. This was exasterbated by delays in rollout and the A380's arrival in late 2007 aligning with a major economic recession. Once airlines started buying again, the Boeing 787 was an alternative (late 2011).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Farmer Tim on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:35AM (1 child)
Exasterbate (v): an unsuccessful attempt at autoerotecism, a portmanteau of exasperation and masturbate.
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @12:47PM
Is this incredible feat of contortion something you learned and developed in the workplace Farmer Tim?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:39AM (4 children)
With how huge of a failure the 787 was in terms of timelines, how did airbus possibly fuck up enough to lose business to Boeing?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:41AM (1 child)
how did airbus possibly fuck up enough to lose business to Boeing?
They make crappy airplanes. The A380 was a showcase to impress the sheiks. It's pretty useless though. You can't put oversize cargo in there like you can with a 747. It's just a bad design, and ugly too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @11:48AM
Translation: A380 not fit for morbidly obese Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @10:07AM (1 child)
Fuel efficiency. A380 needed larger wings to be efficient at that size. But then it wouldn't fit on airports ... but they went ahead with it anyway.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Wednesday February 20 2019, @01:50PM
Yes but no. Fuel efficiency is what killed it in the end - to meet the specs for their upcoming EK orders (now cancelled) they needed a re-engine (a la 320neo etc.) with current generation engines. Only problem is the engine mfrs wouldn't do it - too little money in it. I suspect Rolls' preoccupation with solving Trent 1000 issues may also have played a part.
Shame, because it's actually already flown with the Trent XWB as a test platform, but it's the re-certification costs that are too high for the expected volume.
The -900/-1000 stretch would have helped on the wing efficiency too, might have fixed the looks too, (it's wings are actually too draggy because they were designed to cope with a _longer_ fuselage within the wingspan limits, but efficiency is per seat and with the longer fuselage you get more seats for that drag).
Biggest problem may have been failing to design it for freight conversion from the start - means there is no market for used ones apart from breaking for parts, which means lease costs are high because the leasing cos have to get all their return from early years passenger service.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mendax on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:06AM
That remains to be seen. There is no resale market for the A380 because no one wants to buy them. They're too expensive to fly unless they're mostly full. As a result, the oldest A380s are already being retired and scrapped for parts. Singapore Airlines just did this and other airlines will follow. [simpleflying.com]
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @05:07AM (2 children)
i got to see one fly at Oshkosh and saw it fly low, near stall speed while doing a turn; I was kind of thinking of making a run for it in the opposite direction in a "oh the humanity" kind of way though it some how stuck to its intended path
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:43AM
Many years ago now I had a similar reaction the first time I was directly under a C-5 pulling a similar maneuver....it appeared to just stop and hang in the air, the 'threat awareness' part of my brain was screaming 'why isn't that fucking thing falling out of the sky?, run away!, flee!, flee!' and was seriously winning the fight against 'Mr Rational and his talk of aerodynamics.'
Still, not as scary as a laden B-52 suffering hydraulic 'issues' going over the top of the house at less than 100 ft in a mad dash to get to the nearest airport's runway..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:59PM
That's a perception issue, these are really big aircrafts, so even while traveling fast they appear to move very slowly.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:45AM (1 child)
A380 was one of the least unpleasant aircrafts to get squeezed into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @01:05PM
At least you were not given oars :o)
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Wednesday February 20 2019, @02:31PM (1 child)
A380 is not really a very good aircraft for customers which is why airlines have been moving away from them. The airlines prefer smaller more energy efficient airplanes. Airlines like to be able to add and remove capacity from
routes as demand patterns change, and do not like being stuck with huge airplanes they cannot fill. Smaller airplanes also allow for more frequent flights since they do not end up having to schedule more infrequent flights to try to fill one of these huge mega planes. So the smaller planes can actually provide greater convenience and as well a lower cost ticket for the consumer because of the way it allows the airlines to operate more efficiently. It allows the airlines to schedule flights more frequently rather than having to wait for these huge mega aircraft to fill which would result in more inconvenient schedules for the customers and customers having fewer choices as to when they want to fly.
Boeing did market studies of the issue and realized that airlines wanted smaller efficient planes, rather than huge monsters like the A380. A380 monoliths were truly out of touch with the needs of the customer and were not based on thinking regarding providing the best services to the customer. This is better to serve the needs of customer by offering more frequent flight schedules for the above reasons including more convenient scheduling and being able to adjust capacity.
Airlines need to be consumer focused and to provide a low cost ticket and convenient scheduling. When you look at ticket prices as a metric, driving down the cost of air travel as a result of deregulation has been a success as airlines have had to compete on price.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:45PM
The 380 was a prestige design from cheap oil times to prevent Boeing from leveraging the 747 margins to subsidize the 737s against the cash-cow 320s.
Asia rising with lots of airlines, massive travel growth forecasts, and limited airports slots, made a bigger plane the easy answer.
By the time it flew, W had quadrupled the price of the barrel and ushered in the Great Recession. The longer versions and cargo didn't happen, wiring issues wasted precious time, and the cargo space wasn't as profitable (less spare capacity when full of people).
The business logic is to cut it now, but investing a few billions in fuel savings might pay off in 5 to 10 years, when the market conditions could match the original forecast better. Can't blame them for not trying.
It's still the most comfortable bird I ever cattle-classed, by a good margin over the 330, 340, 777 and 787.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday February 20 2019, @02:44PM (3 children)
50 years ago Boeing developed 747 which is still the best and in demand while 10-12 years old A380's nobody wants even at second hand prices.
https://simpleflying.com/qatar-airways-a380-retirement/ [simpleflying.com]
Just the other day US Air Force ordered F-15's - yet another 50 years old marvel http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/200139/usaf-requests-boeing-f_15x-fighter-in-next-budget.html [defense-aerospace.com]
Pentagon really should scrap F-35 program, but it would be too much to ask. They will burn all the moneys first. Besides, the US can always persuade friends to buy some.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday February 20 2019, @04:00PM (1 child)
Sorry to nit-pick, but I would not call the 747 "the best". It delivers unique capability in some specific segments and continues to remain competitive. Of all the aircraft currently in production, I would probably point to the A350 XWB introduced in 2015. I haven't flown yet but I've heard the passenger experience is better than the 787, and the A350 competes directly with the 787 in efficiency and capability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350_XWB [wikipedia.org]
If you want to go by volume, I suspect it would come down to the A320 or the 737. The following pages are interesting, although I'm unsure if Boeing/Airbus use comparable accounting techniques:
https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/market/orders-deliveries.html [airbus.com]
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/ [boeing.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:21AM
I meant the best flying machine as described in this very interesting book https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Science-Flight-Insects-Jumbo/dp/0262513137 [amazon.com]
As per subjective values, I believe the Airbus is ugly. I also believe that ugly can't fly well so I am satisfied it died so fast. The last point, I don't like German engeneering that has at the core a belief that German engineer knows better how to fly an airplane than a pilot. My whole attitude is very ideological, sorry)))
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by mrkaos on Wednesday February 20 2019, @11:03PM
However there is demand for a re-engined A380 using some of the newer more efficient engines. Any disruption to the point to point model and a resurrection of this aircraft is not hard to imagine.
They have already set expectation with US Allies. As crap as this plane is if the US doesn't deliver what was promised it is unlikely that this will be forgotten by those who contributed budget to the development process. We get it, the US wants to maintain air superiority with the F22 so it begs the question if US allies should now look to European manufacturers because they actually deliver. Like they actually delivered the A380 despite the obstacles it faced.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.