SchorschCanceling the A380 would help EADS bottom line. If it is costing more to build an A380 than you can sell it for, they can’t make it up in it volume.
From now on your are the forum’s “Master Of The Obvious”.
Let me guess, you possess an MBA title?
With regards to frequency, you are absolutely right about maximising connections through higher frequency, and that will always be an issue.
The other thing to bear in mind is that frequency attracts premium travellers. Tjose buying business/first class fares tend to like flexibility and will pick an airline which gives them that. If a meeting overruns at either end of the route, they want to know that they haven’t missed their only flight for the day. Some research we did in London related to air travel need showed that businesses want higher frequency to primary business points, and will make their ticket decisions based on that.
While some other factors make it less simple. First, some destinations don’t allow increased frequency, as the time of arrival and time of departure would be too unattractive, especially to business people.
Second thing: the market. In competitive times the other airlines might sell the tickets cheaper, thus you are flying some frequency-sensible travellers, but the rest takes the big Jumbo.
The city of Hamburg is a major business center, actually one the richest communities in Europe. Still, despite close to 2.5 million people living in the domestic area, there are virtually no transcontinental connections from Hamburg. There is one Continental B757 going to Newark each day, and the flight Hamburg-Dubai. The connection Hamburg-JFK by Emirates was discontinued. If you travel from Hamburg to somewhere (outside Europe, and no charter trip), you’ll always go via Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Amsterdam or London.
Same applies to Berlin, less wealthy but close to 4 million people.
SchorschThe 777 was making profit within 10 years.
Who told you?
Other people have different viewpoints:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1148792&postcount=8
SchorschThe B777 was a successful aircraft, but it didn’t exactly produce the positive cash in the first 10 years it was intented for (there were some large cost overuns, like always). So the beancounters in the upper management had the idea to make things much more “competive” this time and have an “innovative” idea: they decided to stop building aircraft altogether and rather run a procurement and marketing company which has a small factory attached to it.
When does the B787 break even?
SchorschYes, there is a market for the A380. But big enough for the program to break even?
I’m skeptical
So what?
The expenditure is done. Canceling it now wouldn’t help anybody, except the B747-8I. With the awareness that air traffic still grows in the long run, the future seems safe.
Like with the B747, the chance of selling other aircraft in the wake of ordered A380 is good. I think the program will break even, but that might take a while, probably until 2017 to 2020 and 400ish units sold (the pure number is somehow irrelevant, more interesting is the price airlines are willing to pay).
So, not the best business case for the first decade, but honestly, most aircraft in the last 10-15 years were unsatisfactory from that standpoint (even B777).
SchorschIt must be said though, that the number of announced 787 order cancellations have in no way hit the program as hard as the potential A380 order cancellations will hit that program.
There is no need, as most customers will not see their B787 before mid of next decade. Boeing will deliver about 100 until end of 2012, or something like one fourth of the originally proposed plan.
Additionally, most customers have plenty of time canceling their B787 orders. ILFC is now talking about canceling, because they are approaching the final legal option to do so.
Hazy was a big proponent of the A380 concept.
Currently airlines have lost about 10% of their total passengers and and about 40% of their premium travelers. No wonder airlines don’t run to get bigger aircraft. But if the growth predictions of Boeing is correct, the A380 will become a sound business case after all. It still is (and will be for quite a while) the most efficient airliner available.
I rather see the B747-8I as victim of the crises.
I still think there’s a market for the A380.
Even Boeing thinks so.
SchorschI thought they were having a hard time intergrating the new bombs, something to do with typhoons software causing problems.
Software always causes problems, that what it is designed for. Any useful applications are pure side effects, like the chimp on the typewriter.
SchorschI know how you all feel about my opinions, but I am not surprised by Mr Hazy’s comments.
I’ve known from the get go the A380 would not make good lease aircraft.
I feel somewhat vindicated by this.
Currently no aircraft makes a good leasing aircraft!
SchorschThe fighters did become more survivable despite the rise of hitting power from modern AAMs. The main task of the pellets from that is to bring a fighter out of operations for some time. The statistics do show, that for every fighter killed do come two more damaged to various degrees. But in most cases the pilots will eject, because they are trained to do so. To replace a trained pilot does take several years, when a fighter can be replaced in short notice.
I doubt that a modern aircraft is flyable after a real hit by an AAM or SAM.
Especially in carrier operations you rather dumb it before risking a crash landing on a carrier.
SchorschBut what about aircraft that have battle damage or problems landing? I believe the USN credited tankers with saving scores of damaged aircraft, and I thought one of the Viking’s main tasks was to be airborne during landing cycles, so that aircraft that bolted could be refueled so it could go round aigain and make another attempting at landing on?
In times when all threats are modern missiles (no flying telephone poles), I hardly believe there will be so many damaged aircraft. Either killed or fine.
SchorschI hope you understand that those data doesn’t come voluntarily, especially since both planes are still operational. However, if you do have that data, feel free to share it.
Cheers, Cola
Problem is that you haven’t have the slightest idea and quote the numbers you found in your fanboy fighter book. Not very bright addition to the discussion.
In any useful mission the low-level penetrator is limited to below Mach 1. There may be a few exemptions like an F-111 carrying a single nuclear weapon, but for conventional strike, that’s the limit.
How fast at low level?
Not necessarily supersonic. See my avatar.
SchorschI don’t see your problem here.
The question was how much of a white elephant the 747 was.
Figures clearly show it wasn’t.
What could have happened is not the question. The 747 had hiccups, every aircraft does.
Boeing had predicted the need for something the size of the 747, they were then asked to build it by their biggest customers. So they bet the house on it and won. It’s not a matter of favouritism, it’s a matter of Fact.
Boeing predicted the B747 to be an interim solution and primarily a freighter.
And Boeing knew it was gambling quite hard, basically betting the shop.
I think Boeing was surprised by its success.
I would say for many airlines the B747-100 & -200 delivered in the early years of production were indeed white elephants: too big, too expensive. But prestigious. A typical example, Lufthansa flight 540 which crashed in 1974:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_540
140 passengers and 17 crew members.
Load factor somewhere close to 40% maybe.
Really, take a look at the incidents and accidents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747_hull_losses
You’ll find plenty examples with substantially less than 200 people on board.
SchorschThe graph is single biggest load of nonsense on this forum. A perfect example of twisting the data so that is serves someone’s purpose. Taking scores of hundreds of kills in 50-60s and comparing them to few isolated cases in 90s can mean two things:
1. the author was a complete idiot
2. the author was a well-thought guy having been paid a fair amount of money to make the graphs look according to someone’s wish. Let me think why – maybe to demonstate false need for spending four hundred thousand dollars on a single shot which could otherwise be made for a quarter of the cost and thus boosting revenue and profit?– author only lists precentages without actual number of cases
– author draws smooth trends for scattered data
– author mysteriously does not list missed missiles according to standard procedure of firing two shots. The 100% figure is BS
– author does not take into account ERAF-ETAF conflict. Guess why? Because it does not fit his agenda
– author only lists missile types, not actual distance when fired. An AMRAAM fired from 5 miles range is accounted for a BVR kill in his table.In one word.. BS.
You could make that list even longer.
Another factor is important: weather.
At night or in the Middle European “summer” you might have 5 miles distance and still BVR. Most kill-intensive conflicts were done at good or at least fair weather, like Middle East conflicts.
SchorschIf you have a look at:
http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=194then the range of DC-8-62 is quoted as 9620 km with maximum payload.
Whereas at
http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=97the range of 747-100 with 385 passengers and reserves (that is, less than maximum payload) is quoted as 9045 km.
Sounds that 747-100 was not the longest range plane around then. Its only advantage was the large passenger capacity…
Do yourself a favor and check the payload-range diagrams from the Aircraft Characteristics for Airport Planning. You’ll get them at Boeing for download. Then you can stop making claims like above, which are – with all due respect – pretty much non-sense.
SchorschSorry, but your reasonings sound out of whack.
If the DC-10 was the smarter choice, why did the 747 do so much better?
Production of the DC-10 ended in 1989 with 386 delivered (Wiki).
By that time 663 747s had been delivered (Boeing). That’s almost twice as many.So the 747 created a market? Then the DC-10 failed to in that same reasoning, judging by its low sales compared to the 747.
At the time of its first flight and EIS (1969,1970) the B747 was oversized. nearly 20 years later (1988) the world passenger market had quadrupled. The B747 was the aircraft for the late 1980ies and 1990ies, but when first came out of the hangar in 1969, it wasn’t destined for success. Don’t get fooled by some numbers, most early B747 flew half empty through the skies, something operators of A380 cannot afford these days.
The DC-10 also suffered from bad publicity, partly justified, and from the fact that it had a competitor. Add DC-10 and L1011, and you’ll see equal sales.
Your enthusiasm for the B747 is in strong contrast to your skepticism towards the A380, which makes me wonder if you look at the underlying reasons at all or rather stick to simple and comfortable legends.
SchorschSo the F22 fanboys have turned another completely unrelated thread into a Raptor self-gratification-fest, what else is new?
The MiG-31 should be feared, that is something I haven’t heard before.
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LOL
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LOL
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What are you smoking?
Anybody who uses the term “LOL” to counter arguments by professionals (=me) makes himself visible as first class idiot.
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