Airports less than eager to make room for big new Airbus--(the dream is dead?)

Taipei Times ^ | May 01, 2005 | Mark Landler

[dila813]

The dream is dieing right after it took off.

Boy oh Boy, did Boeing Nail this one.

[ProudVet77]

"Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris is building a satellite terminal with six A380 gates." Yup the satellite terminal will be about 30 miles away from the main airport and will take 6 hours to get to. ;)

[dila813]

What a plan, these French guys are really smart!

[Larry Lucido]

"Why would airports not want to adapt? They'll have to adapt," said Richard Carcaillet, the head of product marketing for the A380.

How can you argue with that logic?

[ARCADIA]

Who would want to sit in a 800 person sardine can. Boarding a regular jumbo is bad enough. The French went out of their way to please the airlines; but, they have managed completely ignore the needs of end customer. This thing has the commercial potential of the Concord; yet, another fantastic solution for the wrong problem.

[dila813]

All the flight savings is eaten up by the time and cost at the gate of loading and unloading passengers.

To get ROI you have to keep a monster like this in flight at all times.

This is turning into a disaster for the French run Airbus.

[Nathan Zachary]

It will go the way of the concorde. Nice plane, but it couldn't fly anywhere.
Just wait until the first fully loaded one, with max. passengers, (about 800 or so) smacks the planet at 500 plus mph...

[twntaipan]

I have said this for the past three months (FR is usually ahead of the MSM in these things). Here is that link. This is going to be a huge boondoggle, and likely the total demise of Airbus. Even Euroweenie subsidies won't bail them out of this one!

[garylmoore]

Anyone have a picture of this plane?

[dila813]

I flew on a 747 and it took 45 mins to load when it was full. I wonder what the load times are going to be for this monster. 1-1/2 hours best? 2-1/2 hours worst? how bout loading that luggage?

Not only do you have to go on a sardine, you have to sit in it for a very long time before you can take off and cool down the inside. The passengers are going to fry in hot countries.

[dila813]

It is fun to see the MSM deconstruct it slowly. Like watching a train wreak in slow motion.

[dila813]

There is a pic on the site link.

This plane is so huge and heavy. If it every had an emergency divert. It could only ditch. Landing at a regular airport would cause the pavement to crumble.

There is no place for this plane to land.

[twntaipan]

I fly internationally regularly, and 747s do take about 45 minutes to load (though they get loaded faster in Asia; not sure why).

This monstrosity is going to take at least twice as long (even IF they add additional loading capacity at the gates).

Only the very longest haul flights (over 17 hours) would make arriving 3 to 5 hours early at the airport worth it (to fly on this thing). I would intentionally look for other flights that would save me airport time.

[Military family member]

How much heavier is this thing than the giant military cargo planes? Our local airport had the big Russian monster land. We have an air guard wing, so the runways are fairly large.

[Grut]

India will buy it. Soon we will be reading about "Indian Airliner With 2300 Aboard Crashes Into Wedding Party."

[brooklin]

For your perusal

[elcid1970]

And every terrorist in the world looks at it and dreams.

[Pusterfuss]

[Aeronaut]

Stole my list again, eh?

[Pusterfuss]

Stole my list again, eh?

8o)