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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
(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.