At the current rate Airbus will need north of 30 years to make money from the 380.
Wonder what that means for the longer versions.

One analyst at the Teal Group said this about the financial recovery…

Aboulafia sees “no hope” that Airbus will ever be able to pay back its non-recurring launch costs and that the A380 programme will survive on cash flow enabled by accelerated production, though the economy leaves the company in a precarious situation as it looks to the future.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence

And ILFC said this…

Udvar-Hazy sees the slowing A380 production rate as a threat to Airbus as well.

“If I were Airbus I would be very worried,” he says. “At current production rhythms, it will be very hard to make money with this plane,” he says.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence

I saw an article on this the other day on ATI, it was closely followed by an article highlighting that Thai may not be far behind in cancelling their order for 6.

OK, I have to confess I haven’t read all the points on the page so it may already have been mentioned….BUT, if you book individual sectors with different airliens directly then if you get stranded for some reason (for example if the Jetstar aircraft went tech in HKG) and you missed your conenction, then you would be liable for the cost of the conenction, not the airline that went tech (or whatever), and so you may buy that Virgin Blue flight, miss it, and have to pay an extortionate price for a new flight the day before.

More details…

Brazilian ministry details last track of missing Air France A330
David Kaminski-Morrow, London (01Jun09, 15:53 GMT, 256 words)

Brazil’s defence ministry has detailed the last known track of the missing Air France Airbus A330-200, and indicated that the jet may have reported a pressurisation problem as well as an electrical fault.

Flight AF447 had been en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Charles de Gaulle with 228 occupants when it disappeared.

At 22:33 Brasilia local time, says the ministry, the aircraft made final radio contact with the eastern Brazilian Cindacta-3 Atlantic area control centre at Recife, one of four en route centres that oversee Brazilian airspace.

The aircraft contacted Cindacta-3 at the INTOL waypoint, some 350nm (565km) from Natal, a city on the Brazilian coast. It indicated that it would enter Dakar airspace, Senegal, at the TASIL waypoint – about 663nm (1,228km) from Natal just under 50min later, at 23:20 Brasilia time.

AF447 left Cindacta-3 radar surveillance from the island of Fernando de Noronha, at 22:48. At this time it was cruising at 35,000ft at 453kt, says the defence ministry, with indications that the flight was “normal”.

The aircraft did not contact air traffic control around the time of the expected transit of TASIL.

The ministry says that Air France has informed Cindacta-3 that, about 54nm (100km) from TASIL the flight transmitted a technical message concerning loss of pressurisation and an electrical failure.

Brazilian Air Force rescue teams from Recife initiated a search at 02:30 Brasilia time, involving a Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Embraer P-95 Bandeirante.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

Sounds that 747-100 was not the longest range plane around then. Its only advantage was the large passenger capacity…

And?????? It was designed for high volume markets, which in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, were primarily transatlantic, so the range was MORE than adequate.

JFK-LHR 5538km
JFK-CDG 5830km
ORD-FRA 6969km
LAX-LHR 8757km

I’m not sure what your point is??? Later 747 models were developed to meet growing needs and demands, inluding scale growth in the Asian markets. In truth, until the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, many route to/from Asian, which required the range of the -200 (and more importantly the -400) did not justify the use of a large aircraft!

You’re talking non-sense again!

But is dropping LGW – JFK, so that didn’t last long.

BA drops Gatwick-New York for two resort routes
Simon Warburton, London (29May09, 14:57 GMT, 120 words)

British Airways is to axe its London Gatwick-New York service in October, as it opens new flights from Gatwick to the Maldives and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.

The carrier will operate to Male and Sharm El Sheikh thrice-weekly from 25 October using Boeing 777 aircraft configured with three classes.

Despite ending New York services from Gatwick, BA points out it operates up to 10 daily rotations to the US city, while it will also launch a London City-New York JFK service later this year.

BA is to use two Airbus A318 aircraft, configured with 32 business-class only seats, on the route which – while slated initially for a September launch – has been delayed until the end of October.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

Here’s an interesting take on it though…

Virgin shareholder SIA views full-year performance differently
David Kaminski-Morrow, London (26May09, 22:12 GMT, 260 words)

Virgin Atlantic Airways’ disclosure today of an increased pre-tax profit appears at odds with the financial performance of the company as seen by investor Singapore Airlines, which owns 49% of the UK long-haul carrier.

While Virgin declared that it doubled its pre-tax figure to more than £68 million ($108 million) in the year to February 2009, Singapore Airlines points out that Virgin does not apply international financial reporting standards (IFRS) but instead still prepares its accounts under UK generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

Singapore Airlines, in its own recently-released full-year figures, stated that its associated companies lost S$106 million ($73 million) in the fourth quarter to March 2009.

“That’s largely coming out of our investment in Virgin Atlantic,” said Singapore Airlines senior vice-president for finance Chan Hon Chew.

Chan added that, as a private company, Virgin Atlantic was able to prepare its finances under GAAP, while listed European Union companies must use IFRS.

Singapore Airlines chief Chew Choon Seng pointed out that Virgin Atlantic contributed S$400,000 ($276,000) over the two halves of the year because it was responsible for a “big part” of the first-half share of profits from associates.

Virgin’s statement on its financial performance today does not indicate the accounting standard used.

But the airline says it generated the pre-tax profit of £68.4 million, up from £34.8 million in the previous year, despite the volatile price of fuel.

Virgin Atlantic has not disclosed a figure for retained profit for the year in its statement. For the previous financial year it posted a retained profit of nearly £48 million.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news