chornedsnorkackFirst to recieve the A380 is Singapore Airlines with the first revenue service to be Singapore – Melbourne……Qantas is the second with their first service to be Sydney – LAX
Wasn´t it that Singapore is planning Singapore-Sydney and Qantas is planning Melbourne-LAX?
chornedsnorkackIts Etihad isn’t it???
I think not – I think it is Qantas.
chornedsnorkackIn fact, Dedicate mainly serves oil-related markets where yields for business travel are high but where there is little “cheap fare” demand – some companies have an economy-only travel policy but that doesn’t necessarily mean economy is cheap… (Example, not Dedicate, but I flew to JNB at short notice last week on AF… £2129 in Y-class or £2270 in J-class)
Makes sense. An upgrade costs effectively nothing… a body weighs as much in a 29 inch seat as it does in a fully flat bed.
Course there is, just like there’s demand for business class and economy class on flights to Europe, or where-ever. Ryanair manages OK on short haul economy only, why shouldn’t Transat on economy long haul? I wasn’t saying htat there was no market for economy, I was merely pointing out that in some situations an economic business case can be made for an airline to run an all business class operation – some airlines will chose to do this, whilst others may go the opposite way, and others more will continue to maintain both types of service. Whilst business-jets have skimmed some of the premium market, none the less I foresee more business-class-only services springing up in future in some markets, particularly if the rigours and hassles of travel become even more onerous in future.
Andy
Logically speaking:
if, on a route, there is a demand for business class
and on the same route, there is a demand for economy class
then segregating the business class passengers on a few planes (and airlines) means they have much fewer flight times to choose from. It would seem to be much preferrable to distribute business class between all flights, to ensure good choice of flights…
chornedsnorkackAren’t we saying the same thing, basically?
I think we are not.
Sure, you can cram 10 seats in there.
I am not quite sure.
But airlines seem to have realized a little bit of comfort can go a long way, lately one can’t really see 10 abreast on many planes.
Lately, one can. B747 is still 10 abreast as standard. Originally, B747 entered service with 9 abreast, 3-4-2. Unfortunately, I haven´t heard of that coming back.
Even 777, fair deal wider, rarely has 10 abreast seating. as for md11 and 787 comparison, difference is almost surely less than 28 cm, as both the curvature of the fuselage is different and 787’s walls are thinner.
Maybe. The question is, how cramped can you get? Tristar is 5 cm narrower than MD-11, and sometimes had 10 abreast… but A330 is already cramped at 9 abreast.
chornedsnorkackDoes that mean that every airline when it makes an order has to say which arrangement it’s gonna use? I doubt that. Also, i believe 10 abreast, IF used, would be used on 787-3s, not on anything beyond a short haul trip. Would 18″ seats even fit in 10 abreast arrangement? I’d think they’d have to use narrow seats, 17″ or something like that. (keep in mind there’s 2 inch armrest between two seats, as well as two aisles and like a half a foot wasted on each side of the cabin due to fuselage wall and the curvature)
Look at the Boeing detailed technical specifications for MD-11 on the Boeing website.
There you can find the high-density, 10 abreast picture. It is not just an imagination – you can see, and feel, it in real life, on Finnair.
The seatback width is 16,5 inches (41,9 cm). So is the aisle width.
Boeing 787 is narrower than MD-11: the outside fuselage width is 574 cm for 787, 602 cm on MD-11. Can you shrink those 28 cm and still sit 10 abreast?
chornedsnorkackBecause its nice and peaceful, and the proles don’t tend to come wandering up from the back to clog up the toilets like they do on the main deck! :diablo:
Ah, so the bulkheads do not block proles, but stair does…
Lufthansa’s position on the BBJ services to EWR and ORD was that the markets (from DUS and MUC) featured strong premium/business demand but the economy demand was mainly very low margin leisure travel, or there wasn’t much leisure demand. Likewise KLM on AMS-IAH which has strong demand for business class travel, but very little demand for leisure travel. Better margins can sometimes be had from filling a BBJ or A319CJ with business traffic, than having to offer rock bottom fares to provide incremental revenue that might not even cover the additional cost of operating an A340 or 747.
Andy
Air France approached similar problems with their Dedicate service. An A319 filled with 82 seats – 54 Economy and 28 Business seats.
I presume that the Economy fares on Dedicate service are not exactly rock-bottom…
And on the transatlantic ferry, there is a demand for economy travel. Where do airlines such as Air Transat get their market from?
chornedsnorkack9 seats…
The old B747 had 3-4-2 seating. Asymmetric – but no middle-middle seats. It could be used on Tristar and DC-10 as well… I think KLM and Finair still have it on their MD-11s.
At least I hope for no 10 abreast on 787. Tristar did have 10 abreast, but it was 597 cm wide – 787 is just 574 cm. But therefore 9 abreast on 787 is more cramped than 9 abreast on Tristar.
chornedsnorkackAs a regular long haul business traveller (although I’ve not tried EOS or Maxjet because I rarely go to New York), two things come to mind – one, anything that avoids the congestion and hassle that is Heathrow is largely good,
Then why is Heathrow congested in the first place? Why isn´t the traffic evenly distributed between Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted in the first place?
and two, a service that avoids having to mix it with the chavs at various stages of travel is also usually good (hence why the upper deck on a 747 is so nice and is preferred by most business travellers). Anything that makes travel less stressful, more pleasant, quicker and more convenient is good. For example, the whole boarding experience is BOUND to be more pleasant if there’s only 102 or even only 48 people, as opposed to going through a gate filled with 200 proles,
Why is the upper deck so preferrable? Unlike A380, B747 does not have option for upper level jetbridges!
The biggest challenge these two airlines face is actually not Stansted nor offering just business/first class, its their lack of integrated frequent flyer programs (integrated with other airlines) which is to some extent mitigated by their lower fares, and their lack of on-line connections in both Stansted, New York and Washington.
Why are the connections missing in New York and Washington?
As for the business motivation, there is an argument that says that if you don’t have to fill up the back of the plane with the cheapest [often potentially loss-making] economy fares, which you quite often have to do to fill a 777 or 747, then you (a) can offer a better business class service and (b) do not need to charge quite so much as the business class fares do not need to subsidise the cheap seats.
Do the business class fares really subsidize the cheap seats? If they do, why isn´t the economy class simply left empty?
As another example of this (although not all premium) BA are going to put 777s with only 130-odd Y seats on some Australia operations this winter – why, because they make all their money from premium traffic and the extra Y-seats they could offer on a 747 in a deeply discounted market just aren’t worth offering.
Andy
Indeed. That makes sense.
However, if there are any economy seats on a route at all, it would make sense to make sure economy and business are on the same planes. After all, this gives everyone a better choice of times. 1 plane daily with 48 First Class seats only would give much less choice of departure times than, say, 6 planes daily with 8 First Class seats in front of each, and the rest filled with paid Economy seats…
chornedsnorkackMakes me wonder though… would it be feasible to have aerial refuelling tankers ready for certain busy corridors? Lets say groups operating from hawaii or marshall islands, for flights from US to china or australia. I wonder how much would that cost…
I think the military has found refueling both expensive and risky.
If you are flying with a subsonic plane, like B747 (E-4 or VC-25), or B-52 or B-1 or B-2 with fuel running low, and approaching an equipped airfield… what is the more comfortable and cheaper way to refuel:
land, refuel, take off with full fuel load
or have a fully fuelled tanker (say, KC-10) take off as the plane approaches, tank in air and return to land on the airfield to be refilled?
chornedsnorkackI guess we need another Howard Hughes to come along and order a bunch of these airliners and absorb the cost down. I often dream of what would happen if boeing or airbus started an airline of their own
He did precisely this. It is United Airlines.
However, Boeing cannot do it again because of Air Mail Act. What is the situation with Airbus, or Tupolev?
and started flying 30-50 of these jets (PAX from 225-300) across the Pacific and Atlantic . Other airlines would be forced to seriously consider them if they want to compete with the airline shaving close to 50% of the time .
Boeing did produce and fly a bunch of revolutionary, fast planes. Other airliner were forced to seriously consider them – but all delivery slots were already sold to United Airlines.
Result? Douglas started a brand new manufacturer and produced a plane that was actually better than Boeing 247. The DC-2!
The boeing Sonic cruiser was a good attempt to try to bridge the gap b/w the high costing high supersonic passenger liner and the slow going airliners of today however in my opinion it wasnt pushing the envelope too much (although it offered about 20% greater speed) .
Indeed. The near-sonic speeds have much of the disadvantages of supersonic flight, and little of the benefit, as Convair 880 and 990 showed.
chornedsnorkackThe super-rich will always place a higher premium on comfort than they do on speed. That’s why Mr Abramovich has a B767 and not a MiG 31. :D:D:D
Second-hand B727 or B737 is much bigger, and can be refurbished to be much more comfortable, than a new-build Gulfstream or Falcon. It is much cheaper, too.
Many of the rich do have old airliners refurbished for VIP – but many buy brand new, much smaller planes for some reason.
While ATR VIP is on offer, I haven´t heard much talk of them having large numbers of customers. ATR VIP, even newbuilt, would be more spacious and comfortable than a jet with a similar pricetag.
So, I suspect that if supersonic travel were available at reasonable, even substantial premium price, it could well have a niche.
While XB-70 did not enter service, it did have a substantial test flying program. What was the fuel burn and range like?
Boeing and Lockheed were not mere enthusiasts. They spent millions just to build fancy mockups, and much more to develop planes and estimate their performance. And they stood to risk milliards if they were challenged to build the planes to their performance estimates and did not meet those. With hindsight, were their estimates right?
JAXA NEXST is considerably less defined than Boeing and Lockheed projects were… and estimating the performance of all possible SST projects is even harder for enthusiasts.
chornedsnorkackI actually think that’s pretty cheap. Got a link to this new aircraft?
The link is in your quote.
As for the price tag:
Aerion SSBJ at $100 millions is considerably more expensive than a new build ACJ or BBJ (60…80 million range) and comes close to a new build Boeing 767-200ER (120…130 millions) At the same time, it does not match the comfort or range of Boeing 767-200ER… just like Concorde cannot match the comfort and range of Boeing 747. The large private jets like Bombardier Global Express or Dassault Falcon 900, at around 250 cm cabin width, also have more range and comfort.
I think that Aerion SSBJ, about 200 cm in width, comes closer to planes like Dassault Falcon 50 in size. Any comparisons of size, range and price?
chornedsnorkackFighters can go at mach 3.2 or whatever, but can only do so for very short periods. After that it will have to refuel. That is why Concorde could easily beat all fighters across the ocean. The only military plane that could fly supersonic for long periods of time was the SR-71 and its pilots had space suits… and still required aerial refueling.
I think SR-71 needed aerial refueling because it was unable to take off with full fuel load for some reason.
What is the range of Valkyrie?
What is the range of Tu-160 while supersonic?
Also, how economic were the major 1960-s American SST-s?
Let us see the comparative efficiencies of the planes:
Concorde:
Maximum TOW 185 tons
OEW 78,7 tons
making 42,5 % of MTOW
B2707:
MTOW 306 tons (?)
OEW 130 tons
making also 42,5 %
L-2000-7A
MTOW 276 tons
OEW 108 tons
making 39 %
Sounds L-2000 is more efficient there.
Fuel spent after takeoff at MZFW and MTOW:
Concorde – 93 tons
B2707 – 142 tons
L-2000-7A – 134 tons.
Payload:
Concorde 13,4 tons (100 passengers)
B2707: 34 tons (277 passengers)
L-2000: 273 passengers… presumably also 34 tons
Hm, as Concorde burns, like, 930 kg per passenger while B2707 and L-200 burn only around 500 kg per passenger, you would expect the B2707 and L-200 tickets to be twice cheaper than the Concorde ones!
The JAXA target of 300 passengers is close to what L-2000 and B-2707 offered.
Concorde DID fill the 100 seats at profit for the transatlantic ferry. Would anyone want to operate a SST with nearly thrice the payload of Concorde that only takes 50 % more fuel? The “extra” tickets can obviously be sold at one quarter of the Concorde prices, roughly…
chornedsnorkackAs of now:
When is the first option of A380?
When is the first A380 for sale?
I understand that the production of this year is 1 frame (MSN003); the production of 2007 is 9 frames (6 of them to Singapore, the remaining 3 go to Qantas and Emirates)… what is the 2008 production, and to whom?
chornedsnorkackI actually don’t see why the big fight over 787 vs 380. Boeing says less stopover, longer flights with less passengers in a plane. Airbus says huge congestion coming, huge aircraft needed. And i think they’re both right. There is and there will be market for both planes, especially with the relatevely low productio rate of 380, need for such planes will always be higher than what airbus can deliver.
DC-10 and Lockheed Tristar were built as shorthaul widebodies, as was A300. However, they competed against B737 and A320… and the result seems to be that most shorthaul flights are now on narrowbodies. DC-10 is out of production, Tristar out of production, Boeing 767-200 non-ER out of production, A300 line being shut down…
The only new shorthaul widebody replacing them is 787-3, which suffers poor sales. Shorthaul planes are somehow better.
As for longhaul, the narrowbody 757 was a competitor for 767 et cetera. And that line shut down, too.
Thus, 787 and 380 are also competitors.
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