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The only people I see buying something like this are a bunch of rich oil sheiks in the Middle East.
If I were Bill Gates and this was 1998 and I was worth $130 billion, I'd buy one.
As much as I love seeing new planes, I'm not fond of Airbus or their host countries. But I would like to see the new bird!
Sorry, but a plane with 850 Indians on it would stink (literally) to high heaven.
You couldn't pay me to get on that flight, without an oxygen mask.
Airports are upgrading? I hope not with public money.
So, they're going to cram a bunch of people in an A380 in cattle-car mode? This will be interesting to see.
Could it be that Airbus is keeping secret because 1. they are afraid of loosing out to boeing or 2. there is no deal and airbus is trying to save their humiliated face.
I do find it VERY ironic that the people here on FR who predicted this would become a super cramped bus configuration in the end have been proven correct.
Does anyone know what the cost per passenger mile is compared to the dreamliner.
Imagine: a 12-hour flight on a plane with 849 other people, it takes you 20 minutes to get off the plane, 10 minutes to get to customs, three hours to get through customs, and two hours searching for your baggage.
Anybody ever figure the logistical upgrade cost to handle a big plane like that? I don't think one can just drive up to a standard terminal to load/unload one of those monsters.
Stink is not the only thing you have to worry about.
What is going to happen when one those planes goes down with all 850 souls lost? Every time a plane crashes, they will refer to Airbus Flight XXX as the worst civil aviation disaster ever. The public relations effect will be a disastrous nightmare for Airbus.
I spent five years in the Air Foce and I hate to fly. There is no way I will even consider flying on a plane that large.
According to sources in the company, an Indian airline has asked for a plane with an all-economy configuration, which means a carrying capacity of 850.
Airbus Industries may have lost to its American rival Boeing in the race to sell its aircraft to Air-India, but the European company is seriously pursuing private airlines in India, pitching the biggest passenger aircraft ever built, the A380.
It's really too bad...that just means more people are going to die in each Airbust crash. =(
FedEx is planning to buy 10 of the monsters, but doesn't have enough traffic on any lanes to support it. Maybe with a lot of growth, they could use a handful, but my guess is that it was done because
1) Fred Smith just loves airplanes and
2) wants to curry favor with the Euros.
That would be one hell of a fun party jet.
I doubt John Travolta has the dough for it (the rumor is he may buy a Convair 880 and fix it up).
The Saudi family has a nice duded up 747SP and a L1011 that are toys.
Back in the day, I used to fly into Dehli on Pan Am One, which would arrive 20 minutes before Pan Am Two, coming around the other way. The two 747s would leave New York 20 minutes apart, One going East and Two going West. They would cross over in Dehli in the middle of the night.
So you had two 747s hit Pahlgam Airport within 20 minutes of each other, every day. To say it was mayhem is an considerable understatement. They never did fix the problem. They just had a slug of passengers arrive every day at midnight, and tried to get them out the door by 6 AM.
850 people would be like sitting in a crowded movie theater - for 6, 8, 9, 10, hours of the flight.
Not for Me.....
Also, AAI must take care of what happens inside the terminal: check-in space, baggage handling and security to service up to 850 passengers. For international terminals it will also have to provide space and increase manpower at the customs and immigration counters.
Anybody know how/if these costs will be reflected in landing fees?
Will airlines have to pay more for landing one of these aircrapt and might airports try to establish fees that incorporate the needs of the A380 into all the other landings so the A380 fees aren't relatively higher?