BYE-BYE BIG GUY A 380 future dims

Posted on 07/21/2016

The mysterious ‘they’ say a lot of things. One of them is that, “timing is everything” - and in commercial aviation, whether with scheduling or even aircraft types, that is most certainly always the case.

Take for instance the Anglo-French supersonic Concorde that now languishes in several aerospace museums around the world.
When it first took to the skies in 1976 the ‘SST’ was, in every which way, well ahead of its time. It was also too expensive to operate, too small with just 100 seats, and – even without the sonic boom problems - too limited in the number of routes that could support it.
The aircraft never went into full production and, what were effectively prototypes, flew exclusively for British Airways and Air France as novelty 1,350 mph flagships. Eventually neither carrier could justify the operating losses any longer and so in 2003 “the pointy bird,” as it was affectionately-known to BA pilots, was grounded once and for all.
Like Concorde, the Airbus A 380 Superjumbo, is a one-of-a-kind aircraft. If however its supersonic predecessor was ahead of its time, it appears that the giant 380 may have been behind the times and, with its much-delayed 2007 entry into service, managed to ‘miss the boat.’
The original ‘Jumbo’, the 400-seat Boeing 747, enjoyed four decades of market domination on the world’s most coveted long-haul routes. The four-engine ‘Queen of the Skies’ was loved by airlines for its low seat-mile cost, range and reliability while passengers enjoyed the double-decker roominess and, well, just about everything about it. In the 1980’ and 90’s, be it at Sydney, Tokyo, Heathrow, JFK or Frankfurt, international terminals were universally encircled by 747s.
Once touted as an aircraft that might reach 400 in unit sales, at last count 1,521 have been built. But that was then and after years of diminishing sales, Boeing is now quietly winding down its 747 production line.
So what changed? Two things – business fliers looking for greater schedule flexibility aka higher frequency, and advances in engine technology enabling safe and economic two-engine transoceanic service.
The theory behind bigger airplanes was that at congested, slot controlled airports it made fiscal sense to cram as many seats as possible into each precious departure slot. No arguing with that, but if it means a total of 1,000 seats a day on two A380 departures versus the same number on four Boeing 787’s, then the chances are your passenger prefers the greater choice of departure times.
Once upon a not-so-distant time, the thought of flying long transoceanic flights with just two engines was understandably a no-no: Four engines were the norm and the expectation on long-haul. That changed rapidly when engine manufacturers like GE Aviation introduced amazing new turbofan engines producing almost 100,000 pounds of thrust. To put this in perspective, that is twice the thrust in just one engine that each of four engines on a Boeing 747-200 used to put out. Two of these 737 fuselage-sized engines can produce the same thrust as four used to… savings that extend well beyond fuel burn to maintenance costs and time.
Look today at those same international terminals around the world that used to be surrounded by 747’s and you will likely see a gaggle of 777’s, an ever-increasing number of 787’s, still the occasional 747 and an A 380 or two.
The A 380 ‘Superjumbo’ is truly a monster. It’s 72 meter/237 foot in length with a wingspan of 80 meters/262 feet. The main deck cabin is 50 meters/164 feet long and, spread over two decks, its 550 square meters of usable deck space can accommodate up to 853 passengers - although a typical four-class configuration is more like 550. With up to 320,000 liters of fuel it has a maximum take off weight of 577 tons and, with a typical load, will fly for 15,700 km/8,500 nautical miles.
To handle this super-heavy, two-story Goliath, receiving airports must make multiple complex modifications and reinforcements to runways, taxiways, ramp areas and shoulders as well as terminal buildings and air bridges – mods costing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. New York’s JFK spent $120 million on widening runways and installing two-level jet-ways. LAX spent north of $58 million and Chicago O’Hare buried the A380 content in a $6.6 billion redevelopment plan.
Roll all of the above factors together and to nobody’s great surprise, at Farnborough last week, Airbus announced a reduction of more than 50 percent in the build rate (down to one a plane a month) by 2018. They’d once forecast sales of 1,200 of the supersize jets within two decades but to date only 193 have been delivered – 82 to Emirates - and the order book has only 126 units left to fill.
Having flown on an A 380 is something about which every road warrior wants to be able to boast. So ladies and gentlemen, you’d better get to it! They will still be around for a long time to come but don’t look for them to be showing up on routes where they’re not already in service as right now it looks like a clear case of ‘bye-bye big bird’.