Airbus 380

Quote: Pacomartin

A380 added 8 new routes in March 2015 (3 to SFO)

Air France (AF)
Paris (CDG) – San Francisco (SFO)
Paris (CDG) – Washington (IAD)

British Airways (BA)
London (LHR) – San Francisco (SFO)
London (LHR) – Singapore (SIN)

Lufthansa (LH)
Frankfurt (FRA) – San Francisco (SFO)
Frankfurt (FRA) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Frankfurt (FRA) – New York (JFK)

Emirates Airline (EK)
Dubai (DXB) – Kuala Lumpur (KUL)

Fight between CEO of Delta and Qatar Airways
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tv/2015/02/18/exp-cnni-qmb-qatar-ceo-intvu-full.cnn.html

I have yet to sell a ticket on a A380 and I sell a ton of international tickets.
Lets see, new routes.
AF. hmm, Just about all my skyteam clients prefer DL and KLM over AF.
BA, I sell very very little BA
LH - I sell a ton of LH, close partner to UA. The FRA-JFK route intrigues me, problem is the Star alliance hub is EWR so that's a problem, hard to connect to a UA domestic flight.
DXB KUL flight interests me, may use it for my round the world passengers to go from Asia to Europe connecting thru DXB. Problem is EK not part of a major alliance. On long flights, clients prefer to earn miles on their preferred alliance.

The 3 routes I sell the most
EWR - BOM
ORD - PEK
ORD - PVG

Quote: terapined

LH - I sell a ton of LH, close partner to UA. The FRA-JFK route intrigues me,...

Lufthansa has two seating arrangements for the lower deck
(1) 420 standard seats
(2) 52 Premium Economy & 336 Economy
They follow Emirates example of using the entire upper deck for luxury seating (100 or 106 seats). slightly more than Emirates 90 seats.

It seems to me that if you get the 420 seating arrangement, you might be better off in a B777

Lufthansa has taken deliver of two more A380's than Air France or British Airways. All three airlines have an A380 flying to LAX and SFO.

USA	Lufthansa	Air France	British Airways
Los Angeles	Frankfurt	Paris	London (LHR)
San Francisco	Frankfurt	Paris	London (LHR)
New York JFK	Frankfurt	Paris
Miami	Frankfurt	Paris
Washington (IAD)		Paris	London (LHR)
Houston	Frankfurt

Lufthansa A380 to rest of world
Frankfurt (FRA) – Delhi (DEL)
Frankfurt (FRA) – Johannesburg (JNB)
Frankfurt (FRA) – Shanghai (PVG)
Frankfurt (FRA) – Singapore (SIN)

Air France A380 to rest of world
Paris (CDG) – Abidjan (ABJ)
Paris (CDG) – Hong Kong (HKG)
Paris (CDG) – Johannesburg (JNB)
Paris (CDG) – Shanghai (PVG)

BA A380 to rest of world
London (LHR) – Singapore (SIN)
London (LHR) – Hong Kong (HKG)
London (LHR) – Johannesburg (JNB)

Quote: terapined

.. problem is the Star alliance hub is EWR so that's a problem, hard to connect to a UA domestic flight.

Chicago's goal is to begin A380 service at O'Hare as early as 2016. I don't think they will ever do it at EWR.

Quote: terapined

DXB KUL flight interests me, may use it for my round the world passengers to go from Asia to Europe connecting thru DXB. Problem is EK not part of a major alliance. On long flights, clients prefer to earn miles on their preferred alliance.

The 3 routes I sell the most
EWR - BOM
ORD - PEK
ORD - PVG

The airframes broken up by alliance are as follows. India has been resistent to the A380 until lately, and China is having a major war with Airbus. So I don't see any of those routes being flown by an A380 even if ORD modifies gates to handle A380 traffic.

A380 airframes by Alliance

39 Star Alliance
19 Singapore Airlines
12 Lufthansa
6 Thai Airways
2 Asiana Airlines

31 One World
12 Qantas
9 British Airways
4 Qatar
6 Malaysia Airlines

25 Sky Team
10 Korean Air
10 Air France
5 China Southern Airlines

59 A380 airframes by non-allied UAE airlines
58 Emirates
1 Etihad


Etihad Airways is forming a partnership with airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, India’s Jet Airways, Darwin Airline.

The third A380 of 2015 was delivered today
02. Mar 2015 Emirates
13. Feb 2015 British Airways
30. Jan 2015 Emirates

Still a rather slow start to this make or break year for the model. There are supposed to be 25 deliveries this year, the production line is supposed to turn a profit, and the decision on the neoA380 should be announced sometime this year.



There is no apparent significant difference between the aircraft. But the reason Emirates considers the A380 it's top of the line, is it has passenger load factors which are considerably higher for the A380 than other aircraft. This more than compensates for any difference in fuel burn, cargo capacity and engine maintenance cost. This is valid as long as the fuel consumed per seat mile does not differ more than today.

In the year 2020 Tim Clark, emirates CEO, is saying the A380 will have to be updated because 777-9X will consume 20% less fuel per seat then the -300ER, according to Boeing . The greater fuel savings will more than make up for the the greater load factors, and the scale will tip toward the new Boeing 777.

Without the promise of an upgrade, Emirates may even cancel some of it's orders for the existing airframe. They have received all 58 airframes that were ordered before the first A380 deliveries, and the first of a subsequent order of 32 airframes. The final order of 50 A380s essentially saved the program. They have offered an order of 100 as incentive to build the neoA380.

Presumably the Concourse built to handle the A380 will still be functional, but they won't be able to use the top deck loading ramp on other jets. As each Emirates jet reaches 12 years old, Emirates has said they will not renew the lease. Perhaps at that time, smaller airlines may by the used jets and reconfigure them with higher density to make them more suitable for long range vacation destinations.

I still think airlines should look into faster aircraft.

Alas, there's the supersonic boom which has created so many regulatory problems. Unless supersonic passenger jets are allowed to fly over land freely, the idea will remain just an idea.

But, really, we've seen many improvements in avionics, composites, engine efficiency and more. Yet still we fly no faster than we did in the 60s. It's ridiculous. It's against all we know and expect from progress. Imagine if a computer today was cheaper, used less electricity an had more storage than an Apple ][e from the 80s, but still ran the same software at the same speeds.

Yes, supersonic travel uses up more fuel, and it always will. But that can be improved upon. The latest generation supersonic fighter planes, for example, don't need afterburners to achieve speeds just above Mach 1. These super-cruising engines were developed in the 90s. Ok, that's not much, as passenger planes approach Mach 1. But it's a start. And simply travelling at, say, Mach 1.2 cruising speed would make for shorter times spent in the air. Given the current plane-packing trends, a shorter flight makes such conditions more acceptable.

Alot of traffic today is transoceanic where a sonic boom might go relatively unnoticed.

But Europe and North America don't want ordinary airplane noise much less sonic booms and if its short haul you spend most of your time fairly low and then just when you get to altitude you start to descend again so supersonic speeds would be foolish.

Although the Boeing 707-120 had a range of 4,300 km, the Boeing 707-320 had a range over 7,000 km. The Concorde had a range of about 7,200 km. It is 6200 km from Paris to Washington DC.


There was plans to make a slightly longer range Concorde.

Quote: Nareed

. Unless supersonic passenger jets are allowed to fly over land freely, the idea will remain just an idea.

Maybe. I know they are working on technologies to reduce the sonic boom, but the trans Pacific Routes may still make them economical. My own personal feeling is that there will be only supersonic business jets, as the commercial business will not try and support such a luxury.

Quote: Fleastiff

But Europe and North America don't want ordinary airplane noise...

Sometimes it seems like they should build a giant airport (half a billion passengers per year) in the North Sea, and have trains feeding to London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne Just move all that noise out over the water where they can land jets 24 hours a day. I'm sure you could find a spot that is less than 150' deep and within 200 miles of all those cities.

Quote: Pacomartin

Maybe. I know they are working on technologies to reduce the sonic boom,

How long does it take to travel from JFK to LAX? If you're going to pack passengers like cattle, a 2+ hour flight would be more acceptable given a reasonable fare.

Quote:

but the trans Pacific Routes may still make them economical.

Oh, sure.

Quote:

My own personal feeling is that there will be only supersonic business jets, as the commercial business will not try and support such a luxury.

If business jets go supersonic, eventually airliners will follow.

Quote: Nareed

If business jets go supersonic, eventually airliners will follow.

The business is littered with such predictions. When the 747 was delivered in 1970 (certified for 550 people), most engineers assumed it would be turned into cargo plane before it died, and replaced with supersonic transport. Certainly no one thought it would be 30 years before someone started a project to build a bigger jet.

One of the first 5 B747s is still active with the Iranian Air Force at over 45 years old.