Transterrestrial Musings

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According to a series of articles in Aviation Week, the A-350 was a non-starter from the beginning while Boeings 787 sales are brisk. I read today that there may be some weight creep in the 787 due to the need to add electrical conductivity materials to the composite fuselage and wings to protect from lightning strikes. Time will tell.

It'll be interesting to see how the A-380 pans out. A plane that size has some special airport infrastructure requirements. From what I've read, only 18 US airports are likely to spend the money to meet those requirements and the FAA isn't willing to help them pay for it. One of the potential problems with the A-380 as a passenger plane is a lack of scheduling flexibility over the year. You want to use a plane like that on high density routes, but high density varies over the course of a year. If you can't easily reassign the plane to another high density route, then you'll have trouble filling it. Speaking of filling a A-380, how long do they anticipate it'll take to board and disembark from a plane that size. It can easily take 25 minutes or more to get everyone on board a 737. While the A-380 had more than one aisle, it also carries about 3 times as many passengers as some models of the 737. To get the boarding and disembarkion times to a reasonable value, will they need to have multiple jetways, perhaps one to each level?

As a freighter, the A-380 might be a real winner. It has huge internal volume and long range. If they can make it easy to load and unload, they might sell quite a few freighter versions.

Posted by Larry J at July 17, 2006 03:07 PM

It'll be interesting to see how the A-380 pans out. A plane that size has some special airport infrastructure requirements.

Yes, this is one of the reasons (but certainly not the only one) that I've never thought that it made much sense.

This has some lessons for many potential space ventures...

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 17, 2006 03:23 PM

Trying to get everyone out of an A-380 in an emergency must be a something to see.

Posted by rjschwarz at July 17, 2006 03:33 PM

Trying to get everyone out of an A-380 in an emergency must be a something to see.

I think the Firesign Theater put it best - "... like worms out of a hot cheese log ..."

Posted by Dick Eagleson at July 17, 2006 04:42 PM

Rumour has it that EADS are sand bagging a bunch of A380 orders ahead of the summer airshows. There seems to have been some rather sneaky politics happening over the EADS share price due to the upcoming BAe Systems divorce. Hammering the share price is a good thing if EADS end up having to buy BAe out of the Airbus consortium.

Yes, the A380 needs special loading systems, I believe they have dual ramps for each deck. There might only be 18 US airports for the A380, but that's not really the market. The aircraft really comes into its own for the key long haul hub carriers who want to maximise the value of slots in expensive airports like LHR, Hong Hong, Singapore and the like. It's not really a surprise who the lead customers have been. The only question is how long BA will keep quiet on this. The new BA terminal at Heathrow has 6 A380 enabled gates being built. They've kept very quiet about what they are doing moving forward.

I detest flying long haul on aircraft smaller than a 747 and, to be honest, I am looking forward to the A380 coming into service on some of the routes I do a lot. I think its a little early to be saying the last rights on this one.

With regard to the A350, what surprises me the most is keeping the A350 name - it's a new aircraft, give it a new name.

I suspect that once the Boeing delivery problems start to hit home some of the Airbus customers will committ to the new aircraft and it will be back to business as usual.

There are rumours of some more serious problems than just the weight. I flew back from Seattle to LHR sitting next to a Boeing engineer and he had some fairly interesting "off the record" comments about the 787 including a lot of concerns about working with composites on that scale.

I'll be very interested to see what comes out of Farnborugh by the weekend.

Posted by Daveon at July 17, 2006 04:52 PM

I won't claim to represent the market (as many, nonsensically, do with respect to space tourism), but I hate jumbos. The window/non-window seat ratio on them is too low, making it harder to get a window seat, and there's no sense that you're even in an airplane. It's like being on a giant bus. There is no benefit to them, other than reduced ticket price (if I can get one).

I suspect that those airports that have facilitized for the 380 (likely more for political than business reasons) will come to regret it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 17, 2006 04:58 PM

Rand, *sigh* nevermind...

Anyway, while I understand your comment, I suspect I probably am a core constituent of the market for the A380, which is long haul business flyers. We might not be the bulk of flyers, but we do represent the bulk of profit for the major long haul carriers like BA, Lufthansa, Singapore, Cathy, Emerites etc...

Typically I'll fly Premium Economy or Business class and I'll do around 150,000+ miles a year, typcially in 8-10 hour flight segments. At least half of these are night flights and consequently I find windows to be of marginal use. If I'm on a short haul (under 4 hours) segment I'll occasionally have a window.

What I look for is a bed, or a lot of leg room; in seat power; internet connectivity; room to work and open my laptop; decent in flight entertainment and good food and drink.

I suspect that those airports that have facilitized for the 380 (likely more for political than business reasons) will come to regret it.

I doubt it myself. The key hubs like Heathrow, Schipol, Frankfurt, Kastrup, Singapore, LAX, Hong Kong etc... are really, really limited on slot space and they're the airports people really want to use.

It's a different model than the 787 one, but I suspect the growing flight market is more than capable of supporting the two of them.

I was in Dubai last week and they're building a huge new airport to support their growing business and tourist market. However, Emirites still want to fly out of LHR - people just don't want to use Gatwick and Stanstead. As they are not going to get more slots, the only way they can increase their passenger through put is with the A380. Hence the orders. I've read similar commercial arguments coming from the Asian hub operators too.

There's enough of a market for large and mid-sized planes.

Posted by Daveon at July 17, 2006 05:26 PM

...while I understand your comment, I suspect I probably am a core constituent of the market for the A380, which is long haul business flyers.

You may be. I am not. I love window seats, regardless of flight length, and I like flying (as opposed to sitting in a bus seat for endless hours).

I'm not claiming that I'm the market. I'm simply claiming my own personal preferences.

It's a different model than the 787 one, but I suspect the growing flight market is more than capable of supporting the two of them.

That may be. But if I were a betting man, I'd still put more money on the 787 market than the 380 market.

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 17, 2006 05:33 PM

I used to like flying, but frankly I've done too much over the last 3 years to enjoy it any more than a means of getting me to where I need to go. The last flight I really really enjoyed was Concorde in 2003.

But if I were a betting man, I'd still put more money on the 787 market than the 380 market.

I'd agree with you there. Which makes the EADS messing around on the A350 all the more weird. The mid-size jet market is always going to be better than that of the super jumbo market.

I do believe that Airbus will do ok out of the A380 between the passenger versions and freight.

Posted by Daveon at July 17, 2006 05:48 PM

I really like the 787 concept. Farther, nicer, more efficient. That's where the need will be over the next several decades, not in cramming more people on existing routes, but expanding other routes and making new routes. Making long distance air travel ubiquitous, rather than just denser (which is the A380 model). Think about air travel in the developing world (China is a perfect example, since they've been a big aerospace purchaser recently). That's going to be a huge chunk of the market for the foreseable future, and it's smart to be targetting that market now, rather than later.

In short, the A380 targets a niche market with slow growth while the 787 targets a large and fast growing market.

Posted by Robin Goodfellow at July 17, 2006 06:24 PM

nicer

I keep reading this, and I see the internal mock ups and simulations and I just don't get it. The 777 was meant to be nicer with the ceiling "hidden" luggage compartments but I find them dreadful aircraft.

The range will be important, as will the efficiency... all of which makes the weight comments coming out of Seattle interesting.

It will be interesting to see what other airlines take advantage of the ultra-long haul routes like those that Singapore and Cathy have been starting with 777-LRs and A340s.

Posted by Daveon at July 17, 2006 06:28 PM

Re the "weight problems with the 787"--ALL commercial aircraft (and military aircraft too) have weight problems during their development. It's part of the design process. The issue is how severe are the problems and how confident are the engineers that they can get the weight down during the development phase?

So right now, the fact that the 787 is overweight is not an issue, at least until we know how much it is overweight and whether Boeing can fix that problem.

The A380, however, has real problems. Several prototype aircraft are already flying and its problems are not only design, but manufacturing. They have had problems with the wing, and we must wait to see how they solve them (one option is to throw more structure at it, thereby increasing weight and decreasing range or payload). The manufacturing problems are more worrying because they indicate a systemic problem. Simply put, Airbus identified the wiring as a manufacturing problem a year ago, and now they indicate that they still have not solved that problem after a year's worth of work. This strongly indicates that they have problems in management. They are not solving their problems.

You cannot make a direct comparison between the A380 problems and the 787 problems, because the A380 is much farther along in its development. So it should not be experiencing its problems now.

As for Daveon's point, well, he's right and also missing the real issue. It is true that the A380 exists because certain airports (notably Heathrow) cannot add any more gates, so they need to put bigger planes at their gates. But the bigger issue is that this is a finite market. There are only so many gates that can/will be upgraded. Is anybody else going to accomodate an A380 if they do not face that problem? Are they going to invest in supporting an A380 when they are not constrained by gate availability? Or are they simply going to buy more gates and fill them with smaller planes, which they can lease?

And there's another issue. While they can upgrade to the A380 at some gates, there are other things that limit throughput at airports, like takeoff slots. Keep in mind that there are regulations on spacing between aircraft for takeoff and landing. The A380 right now requires more space behind it (so that its wake does not knock other planes out of the sky). When an airline operates an A380, they may have to sacrifice an additional takeoff or landing slot for a smaller plane. So, theoretically speaking, would an airline rather fly one A380 and one smaller plane out of an airport, or three midsize aircraft instead? See the dilemma they face.

One thing that I really wonder about is the ability of other airport services to handle these really big planes. I flew through Heathrow a couple of months ago and there were waits for the checkin, immigration and customs, and at the gate. Can immigration handle two A380s arriving simultaneously, or will this really stretch the capacity at the airports?

Posted by Dave Westmorland at July 17, 2006 07:12 PM

With the growth of China, I'd expect to see less Hong Kong flights from Taiwan, Japan, and more direct flights to medium cities in China...(well not so medium anymore.)

Why should I fly into Hong Kong and then spend 4-6 hours to get to Shenzhen, where I really want to be?

Posted by Aaron at July 17, 2006 08:27 PM

Aviation Week has had several good articles on the recent problems with the A380, including one that noted that Airbus is chasing a difficult problem: at the same time that the number of planes they sell may be taking a hit (because the problems are making potential customers nervous), their costs are rising (because of the problems and also the need to service the debt that they incurred). Put another way, they need to sell _more_ planes to reach their breakeven point, and they are selling _fewer_ planes.

The argument is not that Airbus will not sell a bunch of A380s. It is that they may never sell enough to make back the money that they spent. The A380 could be as successful as the Concorde.

It is also worth noting that the calculations that go into these things are complex, far more complex than people outside the industry realize. Both Boeing and Airbus constantly claim that their planes are more fuel efficient, but those calculations are rather fuzzy and an airline may only know if the fuel efficiency claims are true once they actually start using the plane (a good reason to lease rather than buy).

Another example of the complex calculations is the fact that the 747 frequently carries a lot of cargo in addition to passengers. It has a high ratio of cargo space compared to cabin space. The A380 is a bigger airplane, but it does not have a good ratio of cargo space. What this means is that if you operate a 747 carrying passengers, you can make additional revenue by carrying cargo (like mail). But if you operate an A380, there is less opportunity to make that additional revenue. That is the kind of thing that also enters into an airline's calculation. It's not just fuel per seat-mile, it is other factors as well that only the airlines themselves know.

Someone also mentioned that Boeing will likely run into production problems on the 787. They had some big production problems in the 1990s and they claim that they will not encounter the same problems again. Only time will tell, but they clearly solved the problem the last time.

Posted by Dave Westmorland at July 17, 2006 09:17 PM

Dave Westmorland makes a lot of excellent points. I think the congestion issue is a very serious one. What happens when you transform an already high traffic international airport into an A380 level international airport? The number of people going through luggage check, security, customs, and immigration gets bumped up another notch. Not to mention the number of cars on the road to/from the airport, in the parking lot, and in the loading zones. Can the airports, roads, and border officials really handle that? Even if they can, it's enormously unlikely that an increase in volume won't result in increased delays and increased inconveniences for customers. Will flyers be willing to put up with that? What does a major A380 upgraded airport look like when it's full of flyers but the weather has grounded all the planes? Is that even a manageable situation?

Also, I haven't heard anyone mention the increased risk of setting up a regular A380 flight. If you fly an A380 with only a few passengers, you're going to take an incredibly massive bath financially. If you're an airline and you fly A380s there is a lot more riding on your ability to accurately predict passenger demand for flights.

Posted by Robin Goodfellow at July 17, 2006 10:34 PM

Dave: Heathrow can add lots of more gates. They're doing at the moment with Terminal 5 and the soon to be redeveloped terminal 2. The problem is the landing slots they can physical support and the number of planes they can get onto the ground. This is a serious problem for long haul operators managing intercontinental routes.

The weight problems with the 787 are to be expected however, the rumours persist that there's more stuff coming down the line. There's a lot of new technology in the 787 and it will be interesting to see how they deal with it. I've chatted to one Boeing engineer who is worried about what they don't know about composites. However, we're going to have to wait and see on that on.

Finally, according to the Economist recently the chinese might be a big internal market for the A380 too.

My expectation is the A380 will break even and then some. However, by not having a mid-size ready to compete with the 787, Airbus have made a huge problem for themselves.

Still, nice to see some real competition.

Posted by Daveon at July 17, 2006 11:24 PM

"The problem is the landing slots they can physical support and the number of planes they can get onto the ground."

The problem is that the airports do not consider all planes equal when it comes to takeoff and landing spots because of the requirement for separation between aircraft. The airports allow tighter spacing of smaller planes, but require bigger spacing for bigger planes. (Airlines actually pay _more_ to land and launch a jumbo than they do for a smaller plane for this reason alone.)

Right now the ruling is that an A380 requires more spacing between flights than a 747, meaning that you can fly more 747s into an airport than you can A380s (in reality, you'd want to use those extra spaces for smaller planes to different destinations--you could illustrate this with a thought experiment: imagine 1000 planes landing with 100 people apiece, vs. 500 planes landing with 175 people apiece; that's essentially the calculations at work). Airbus is fighting that ruling, because they know that it makes the A380 less attractive to the airlines. If your selling point is that the number of landing slots is limited, then you are in trouble when your airplane is so big that it reduces those opportunities more.

Another factor is flexibility. It is easier to take a midsize aircraft and shift it to another route because it doesn't require new infrastructure. But those A380s are going to be stuck servicing the same routes and will be hard to shift to new ones as passengers change their preferences.

Posted by Bill Chase at July 18, 2006 06:45 AM

Google this headline:

"Boeing gets $3.3 billion freighter order from Emirates"

No A380 freighter's for Emirates.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at July 18, 2006 08:28 AM

So why didn't Airbus incorporate winglets into the design? Wouldn't that reduce the lift induced drag of the wingtip vortices? It seems that would contribute to smaller overall wake vortices thereby decreasing the interleaves between departures.

*spins propellor on cap*

Posted by Josh Reiter at July 18, 2006 11:15 PM

Yes, Emirates just bought eight 777F's and ten 747-8F's. They're also seriously considering bumping back their A380 order and purchasing 747-8's.

Posted by Chris Mann at July 19, 2006 12:20 AM

Of course, it is not over until the lady sings.
As I suspected, Airbus have been sandbagging orders in order to have a good airshow.

Posted by Daveon at July 21, 2006 08:35 AM

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