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posted by chromas on Monday February 11 2019, @06:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the wings-and-prayers dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday February 11 2019, @12:02PM

    by shrewdsheep (5215) on Monday February 11 2019, @12:02PM (#799474)

    As airports become more and more crowded, bundling more passengers into fewer lift-offs/landings will be one of the few options to further fuel aviation growth in the future. From what I read about the A380 developments, my understanding is that airlines indeed appreciated the A380 as being a solution for future growth, however, at the time the A380 had not been engineered for fuel efficiency, rather it was designed to make even bigger variants possible. Nowadays fuel efficiency is crucial which makes the A380 problematic. I expect fuel-efficient designs of A380 proportions by Boing and Airbus popping up in the future.

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