Success Happy

Do you think the A380 will be a big success?

How successful the A380 will be, and will it's sales be as good as the legendary 747? Will it remain in production 40 years from now?

Public Comments

1. Yes and No, Fuel costs will make the A380 very expensive to fly and It might be hard to fill all 580 seats in the A380 so airlines will lose money. If airlines are able to sell all the seats on the A380 on all of there flights the plane will be a big success and more airlines are likely to buy more of the aircraft. I am a big fan of the A380 and think it would be a fun plane to fly on. So I can't wait for them to go into service. Check out www.airbus.com for cool facts and backgrounds and a timeline of the A380. Its Pretty cool. Ross_virden
2. Impossible to tell. Not many airlines will really want a airplane so big. Fuel costs would be unbearable but the Boeing 747 is becoming so fuel efficient, and will continue to fly for many years to come.
3. In my opinion the A380 is going to be a gigantic flop. There are only limited routes it can run and with 4 engines and fuel prices going up it could bankrupt airlines. I read a few weeks ago that the fuel burn is already 10% higher than origionally planned. Not good.
4. I seriously doubt it. The A380 was designed when fuel prices weren't too much of an issue. Boeing went the other way and bet the farm on a fuel efficient design with the help of GE aircraft powerplants. With crude oil over $70/barrel, it's easy to see which way the airlines will go. It was actually rumoured a few weeks ago Singapore Airlines was going to pull out of it's orders for the A380, that's how troubled the program is already in.
5. Depends on the first passenger flight.
6. A380 will only be a minor success, basically, I think it will pay for its development costs and not much more. The first problem with A380 is that it cannot fit into a standard 747 gate. The gate has to be wider because of the extra wingspan. Not only that but taxiways and aprons often have to be widened to have enough room to safely pass or keep the engines from sucking in materials from unpaved areas. However, the biggest problem for A380 is that Boeing is building a streched version of the 747-400ER called the 747-8.. The 747-400ER has a new interior and an increase in gross weight to give it a range of 7670 nm. However, the stretched version, the 747-8 has a 18' longer fuselage and a further increase in gross weight and a cockpit that matches the 787. By using four of the same engine designed for the 787 Dreamliner it is able to match the 8,000 nm range of A380. The 747-8 will fit into a standard gate so it doesn't need any changes to the airport. Although it was started later, Airbus has announced production delays so there won't actually be that many A380's flying when 747-8 first flies in 2008. Basically, in spite of A380's use of composites in the airframe the 747-8 is still more efficient. The 747 Intercontinental will provide equivalent trip costs and 9 percent lower seat-mile costs than the 747-400, plus 21 percent greater cargo volume. Operating economics will offer a significant improvement over the A380. The 747-8 is more than 12 percent lighter per seat than the A380 and will consume 11 percent less fuel per passenger than the 555-seat airplane. That translates into a trip-cost reduction of 22 percent and a seat-mile cost reduction of more than 4 percent, compared to the A380. The cargo version, the 747-8 Freighter will carry 154 tons which is nearly as much as the 158 tons of the A380F. Operating economics of the 747-8 F will be significantly superior to the A380F. The 747-8F's empty weight is 95 tons lighter than the A380F, resulting in a 25 percent lower fuel burn per ton, 20 percent lower trip costs and 23 percent lower ton-mile costs than the A380F. Although A380 does have some additional cabin volume this is partly negated in 747-8 by redesigning the 747 crown deck for use as a skyloft. A380 will have to deal with the fact that the stretched 747-8 is both cheaper to buy and operate and matches it in range while having an updated cockpit and interior as well as the flexible skyloft area. The use of the same cockpit as 787 means that crews can transition from one to the other with only about 1/3rd as many training hours. Part of the skyloft area will likely be used as a lounge and sleeping area for off duty crew away from the regular passenger areas and A380 really has nothing equivalent to this. It cost Airbus $12 to design A380. It cost Boeing $4 Billion to design 747-8. In spite of the money spent the 747-8 still ends up being more efficient in both passenger and cargo. There have been 50 orders for 747-8 Freighters in the past year while there have only been 10 for the A380 Freighter. The other problem is that Boeing is currently designing the all new 787 Dreamliner and Airbus needs to design a competitor. However, the drain on their resources has meant that they can only afford to build an upgrade of the A340 which will not be as efficient as the 787 or as spacious as the 777.
7. I can only add a little to scientia's excellent response: I would hate to fly in an aircraft that big. It is bad enough getting on and off from the back seats of a 747; an A380 is bigger so would take even longer to load and unload. (Although I understand that docks designed for an A380 will have two ramps, so it won't be quite as horrible if you use an airport that has these.)
8. Although I wish Boeing success with its new B-787 and new B-747-8, (and I think the A-380 will likely not have a production run exceeding 20 years) I, personally, would prefer to fly the somewhat slower B-737. Why? Because the luggage-retrieval system is woefully inadequate, and fewer passengers means less luggage on the carousel, the wait being shorter to claim your bags. I'd love to see a B-737 composite with higher speed. I'd also love to see an entirely new computerized baggage-handling system for the 21st century -- already years overdue.