Airlines Downunder | Why the A380+ is going to end up like the 747-8i

Real World Aviation
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Hello Community!
Welcome to the 2nd edition of Airlines Downunder. This might be taken as a rant towards quad engine jets but it just points out most of the issues with the recent aircraft development. Let’s get into this!

Airbus, a company that revolutionized aircraft technology and leads Europe in the Aerospace sector. The Airbus A380, carried over 170 million passengers since it’s first flight, at the latest airshow in Paris, Airbus announced their A380+. Now please, prepare for a lot and I mean a lot of criticism.

Everything we know:

· Further increasing A380 efficiency and economics

· Maintaining A380 unique comfort level

· New large winglets to provide up to 4 % fuel burn savings

· 13% cost reduction per seat versus current A380

· Up to 80 more seats

Seems like a normal refreshment to their A380 campaign right? Well we already know that the A380 worked a treat on Emirates, 142 firm orders. That makes up almost a half of all the A380s that were ordered. Now let’s look at the A380+. Slightly longer than the normal A380, as stated above less fuel burn too. 4 class configuration, hold up. If a normal A380 costs US$432.6 million, how much will a + cost? 10 million more? So who on the wombat would buy that?! Emirates would not buy then who else would? Let’s cool this down a bit, the + might be slightly larger in size so carrying people would be a good thing on this plane. So this might be able to carry much more people but the fuel burn would still be cautious, what do you expect? 4 massive engines powering the whale. Same as my last post about 777’s, two engines is all you need. As a conclusion, the Airbus A380+ will be another passenger flop like the 747-8i but most likely Airbus will get the all new wing lets attached to normal A380s for a smaller cost, simples!

claps You are half way through claps

Boeing, the father of aviation. The creator, of the best selling aircraft. The creator, of the mighty Jumbo, the mighty old piece of metal (what it is now). The end of the 747 is near and few years back Boeing made the last push, the 747-8i, the plane that was meant to save the 747 but skid off the other way…

Everything we know:

· Capable of holding 410 passengers

· As said by Boeing: Much Quieter

· World’s Fastest Commercial Jet

· 60 more seats

· Outstanding Low Fuel Burn

Personally I don’t have issues with this aircraft, but there are some specs that really bug some people. First off, the A380 took it’s fame, oh gosh why is he blaming the A380 all the time but really, The 747-8i could of been a really great release if it was rolled out earlier. The 747-8i is still however great but… as I said before 4 ENGINES. In anyway that this aircraft is reducing fuel burn, it is still going to burn through a lot of it. The A380 stormed ahead in passenger capacity so the 8i dropped down from potential market hit. The 747-4 was a massive fuel consumer and also a cargo hauler too. Boeing lost all hopes for passenger aircraft but still, a total of 45 Passenger 8is were ordered. Lufthansa carried the most of them. So the passenger hauling skid off, but cargo 8is now run the some of the world’s biggest trade routes!

Ah finally the conclusion…
Two different planes two be honest. Airbus is aiming too high while Boeing aimed high but went over date.
If you want to continue this in the comments feel free to do so! Which one do you think was / is going to be a bigger flop?

Little Notice: This took me 1hr and 45 mins to type and another hour to re-search, if you give a like it’ll appreciate my time for writing this, thanks!

Sources:
747-8i
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747/#/design-highlights/economy-performance/profitability/lower-fuel-cost/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-8#Orders_and_deliveries

A380+
http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2017/06/airbus-presents-the-a380plus.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A380_orders_and_deliveries

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Lol

1hr +45mins + another hr! Whoa! Kudos to you!

I think the A380+ is gonna flop the most

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While 747-8i can attract a few of customers, unfortunately there are no interest so far for the A380plus. I know it’s too early to judge it as it was just launched on the last Paris Airshow. But learning from A380-800, I doubt A380plus can attract more customers besides Emirates. If Emirates isn’t interested with the deal, then it’s highly likely that this A380plus would be a dead aircraft as no one wants to buy it

Anyway, Awesome and well-constructed post! I do love to see topics like these 😊

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I’m sure in the distant future there will be topics like:

“The A380 Plus, the dead plane that never flew”

(Ok it did fly - but not with Airlines)

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When you consider that fuel for a round trip to LAX from LHR costs £200,000 you realise planes don’t actually cost that much. The price isn’t really the reason, 10mil is nothing

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Look, I feel the A380+ was trying to revive the A380. I’d say it’s too early to judge currently.

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I agree with you. Both airliners are a passenger flop. In my opinion, the A380 launched 10 years too early. Let me explain:

When Airbus says their famous “passenger traffic doubles every 10 years, and airports like Heathrow, LAX, JFK and more won’t be able to keep up. They need bigger planes” (paraphrased obviously), they are right. Planes won’t keep up. But if it would have released this year, with hundreds of orders, more airlines would be interested because by the time Airbus runs out of orders to complete, traffic will have doubled, and more customers will be interested. My opinion.
I am aware that a huge portion of the A380’s failure is because of the 787, that changed the model of long-haul travel for airlines.
This is what I mean:

The 747-8 will still be a succes as a freighter though.
As a disclaimer, I am NOT some sort of market analyst or something. This is my honest, humble and probably wrong opinion.

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Especially as Freighter market has shown a sign of growth. Many airlines such as Cathay Pacific relies on the Freighter and Cargo market to gain profit especially when competition on passenger sector becomes stricter

Thanks to Freighter, We will be able to see 747 even longer. Hopefully until 2050s 😊

It’s unfortunate that Airbus cancelled A380F project. Had it existed by today, it might be able to push A380’s population by today

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Exactly. The 747 is a great freighter option for many airlines. It can carry outstanding amounts of load through long distances, and be very efficient while doing so.

I’m not so sure. The reason it was cancelled, after all, was because nobody wanted it.

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It was unpopular at the time it was launched. But had it still existed until today, it might attract some airlines to buy the airliner 😉

The market has changed significantly in less than a decade

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But the 747-8F is still more efficient, greener, quieter than the A380F would have been. Also, one of the big problems of the passenger A380 is that airlines can barely fill it up. Who would fill up that amount of cargo? Sure, a few would, but not many.

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@SingaporeAirlines the a380F would never have been feasible as it had something like 70% more volume than a 747 but only 25% more weight to MTOW, meaning when at MTOW only like 70% of the plane was full meaning it was very inefficent. Size isn’t everything

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Amazing post! Keep up the knowledge!

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I watched that video!!!
The 787 was the solution to the A380…

but the A350 was the solution to the 787…

OH NO ITS A PARADOX!!1!

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Ummm not really. More like the 787 forces airlnes to make a decision regarding their long-haul strategy, and most airlines are taking the second option, the 787 or A350.

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Oh dear. Oh dear dear dear. Oh dear dear dear dear dear.

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The truth is that, no matter what plane and now matter it’s size, it bites back to all of the competitors. Like the 777 was never meant to be competition to the A380 or the A321 to the 757.

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Not to mention that it’s double decker so how would they put cargo on upper deck. Also it’s cockpit is on lower deck so it can’t have nose door like B747F to carry long cargos. B747 was really designed as a freighter from start (was in competition with C-5 for Air Force strategic cargo) so that’s why it is still doing great job as a freighter and there are still orders for B7478F.

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Totally agree with you.

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In people like us… I’m sure 10 mil is everything (lol)

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