Didn’t outlive the 747 by very long. But even though they won’t make any more, I’m glad the A380 will still be in service for many years to come. Fine plane - upstairs in business class, when I have the chance to fly business, very quiet, clean and up-to-date.
The 747 is still alive in the lucrative cargo-hauling market
Boeing is still building the 747-8.
Honest, I thought it was absurd at the time and would not be a profitable venture.
Oh well.
Didn’t outlive the 747 at all. Boeing is still building cargo versions of the 747, and 2 new presidential aircraft, whose delivery date is 2024.
CC
I’ve read that passengers like the A380, and in some cases the airlines would charge more.
The 747 turns 50 this year. The development costs back then almost bankrupted Boeing.
https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2019/02/13/the-boeing-747-jetliner-turns-50
Didn’t outlive the 747 by very long.
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Somewhat correct. There are none carrying passengers for US airlines. Delta was the last in December of 2017.
The fact you needed to build out larger runways and specialized terminals just to support it, was flaw one....
Overestimating route demand for super long routes was failure number 2.
Airbus took a risk, and lost.
B747, in its -800 cargo variant series, is still being manufactured. Six per year present production rate. About 1600 (of all types) ordered since introduced in 1968(!); around 1550 delivered.
Considering how short the in-service period of the A380 has been, a production run of 230+ is not that bad.
This is just my man-in-the-street opinion, but having to fill a large capacity passenger jet (of whatever manufacturer) to the operating break even point probably introduces a lot of schedule inconvenience for passengers. That may cause many of them (passengers and airlines) to consider smaller aircraft alternatives even if it means intermediate hub routing vice having direct flights. Sort of like packet routing in a network; many small packets hub to hub vice one big packet direct.
Using the big jets to move cargo mutes - but does not entirely eliminate - these concerns. There are still schedules to meet but 2:00 am departures are a heck of a lot easier to execute if no one is complaining about having to show up at 11:00pm or midnight.