Airbus’s Flagship Plane May Be Too Big To Be Profitable (A380 ‘Super-Jumbo’)

Manchester Guardian via Business Insider ^ | Dec. 28, 2014, 10:38 AM | Karl West

[puppypusher]

I guess Boeing may have been right not to build a plane bigger then the 747.

[Olog-hai]

There were concepts of the 747 as a double-deck plane in the past. Even Lockheed envisioned a double-deck passenger version of the C5A Galaxy as the “L500”.

[pepsi_junkie]

Super giant planes are, in my opinion, a terrible idea for passengers. Loading and unloading will take an hour, you will be crammed into the middle of five person rows, service will be awful, and they would reduce the number of flights, resulting in less comfort and fewer options.

I'm glad it's failing.

[microgood]

This plane was betting on the hub concept. Boeing’s 787 is betting on direct flight - which is why it has such a long range.

[catnipman]

This was predicted to happen all the way back when Airbus originally announced this plane.

[mountainlion]

Kinda strange to have people say such things just after fuel declines?

[onedoug]

The A-380 is more suited for FedEx. And I once saw a model of a FedEx C-17 at Nellis AFB.

[catnipman]

Looks like it has more center seats than any other airplane.

[dfwgator]

A terrorists’ dream come true.

[9422WMR]

“A terrorists’ dream come true.”
Or a design engineers nightmare when the tail falls off on that big one.
500 passengers die in one plane crash?
No thanks.....

[DaxtonBrown]

at $440 million each, it is$200 million less than an F35. I suggest militarizing Super Jumbos would make sense.

[headstamp 2]

There’s an efficient/cost effective/profitable size for a passenger jet and it isn’t a jet propelled zeppelin.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Plus the jet ways all have to be reconfigured to accommodate the plane.

[Olog-hai]

Apparently the biggest problem for double-deck passenger aircraft is the need for customized jetway bridges to access the plane.

It takes 45 minutes to load an A380 using two jetway bridges to its lower deck; adding a third bridge to the upper deck reduces that time to a little over a half hour.

[RayChuang88]

The thing that is hurting the A380-800 is this:

This is the Boeing 777-9X, soon to be called the 777-9 (or maybe 777-900). It has almost the same pax/cargo capacity as the 747-400, but with way lower fuel burn and nearly 1,000 nautical miles more range. And the order book for the 777-9X is already 243 planes.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Nice looking jet.

[pierrem15]

The 777 is the most comfortable plane on which I have ever flown (in coach).

[longfellowsmuse]

I agree with this. Flew one from Narita to O’hare a nice ride.

[tophat9000]

Ive flown on the A380 twice ... once LA to China on China South...total cattle car but the airline itself just sucked

And once Sydney to LA on Qantas.. that was not bad...

Really its the Airline