It’s a sad reality. The age of the jumbo jet has come to a close. The Boeing 747 was massively successful aircraft in its time, achieving the nickname of Queen of the Skies. Around 40 years later, Airbus realeased an amazing modern version of this, however, the desire for such an aircraft was increasingly lessening. At first, there were a substantial amount of orders, but as time went on, they died down, and airlines are now even starting to retire the A380.
Anyway, onto what this topic is actually about. Shorty after the A380 came out, Boeing developed a new version of their 747: the 747-8. In terms of passenger airline purchases, only a few airlines, such as Lufthansa and Korean Air, only purchasing a few of them. However, the 747 has the upper hand on the A380, in that it is designed to suit cargo. It’s most notable feature being its flight deck being high up, in order to accommodate a rotating nose that serves as a large cargo door. As the use of the 747 in passenger airlines dies out, many of them still live on serving as cargo planes. Many cargo companies still use the 747-400, and many are also using the new 747-8. This is how Boeing will continue making money off the plane for, I would say, at least another deacade. The A380 on the other hand may still serve in airlines for another 20 years, but I predict there won’t be any more orders after the next 5 years.
This is where the question arises: will Airbus adapt the A380 in order to accommodate cargo? In my opinion, it would be a very suitable aircraft for the job due to its vast capacity. It would need some major adaptions in order to do so such as raising the level of the flight deck like in the 747. However, will Airbus want to take the risk of spending billions adapting the aircraft? Please comment your thoughts. Thank you for reading.
Well I learned that the bumb at the front of the 747 is there to ensure the aircraft can be converted into a cargo plane. Since the nose can then act as a door for cargo. Since the 380 doesn’t have that (lower cockpit), it needs some work, and thus extra money.
No. It can’t be a profitable. The a380 has 60% more volume capacity than a 744F, but only 28% more weight capacity, meaning when you reach MTOW the aircraft isn’t full, which is wasting fuel.
Simply
nonono that’s not what i mean. You would have to remove half the top floor, along with different engines, fuselage etc to make it profitable. It is just not gonna happn
