Today’s update on it..

Airbus in talks to resolve A340-600 forward-weight issue
Alan Dron, London (10Apr07, 12:52 GMT, 192 words)

Airbus is in discussions with A340-600 customers over a weight issue at the front of the aircraft that could have an impact on the amount of freight the type carries.

The type has been found to experience additional loading on the nose owing to weight from heavier-than-anticipated customized premium cabin fittings – such as in-flight entertainment and seat-beds – shifting the aircraft’s centre of gravity towards the front of the jet.

Such a shift can affect the profile and lead to increased fuel-burn. An Airbus spokesman says: “Airbus is aware of this issue.”

But while a report in the UK daily The Times suggests that airlines are being advised to reduce the forward freight hold payloads by up to 5t to compensate, the spokesman claims the actual figure is “more like 2t”.

“Airbus has discussed the issue with customers to try to find a solution for the difference in weights from the reference [A340-600] to the airline model,” says the spokesman.

He declines to name the airlines involved. While the report states that some airlines operating the type are considering taking legal action, the spokesman is unaware of any specific threats of legal action.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

What I don’t understand is why this is exclusively the result of new first and business class seating. I accept that the latest seats of this sort are getting heavier and heavier with new technology and luxury being built in but I don’t believe this is enough of an issue for the following reasons:

i) These new seats, being primarly lie-flat, tend to use more room, thereby reducing the number of seats airlines install, either in premium classes, or by reducing the number of economy seats. Either way the extra weight should be partly offset by an overall reduction in seating. If you compare the seating plans suggested by Airbus on their website, with that achieved by airlines you see an interesting comparison. Airbus suggest that between the front and second row of doors, you can typically fit 66 premium seats, whereas Virgin achieve 45, Thai and Cathay achieve 44, SAA carries 42 in this section of the fuselage, Lufthansa is either 54 or 44, whilst Qatar pushes the boat out with an entire 38 seats in this section of the aircraft! (Do you see where this is going, or do I have to do Iberia for you too? [and I’m not doing China Eastern cos it’ll show nothing!!])
ii) The manufacturer presumably designed the aircraft to be fitted in a single class interior throughout, just incase an airline wanted that, so how much space do these super sized seats use that could be used by normal economy seating? If 1 premium seat uses the space of, lets say, 6 economy seats at the front end (based on three rows of 2 seats outboard of the aisle) then a single premium seat, plus passenger, plus baggage would have to weigh more than 6 economy seats, 6 economy passengers and their baggage, and I simply cannot believe this is true, even allowing for the extra baggage allowance of a premium traveller (which isn’t THAT much of a difference). This all leaves aside the fact that premium classes tend to have a lower average load factor. Again, referring to the manufacturers own seating plans shows that they think the aircraft is capable of 71 Economy PLUS 36 premium seats in this section of the aircraft.
iii) Was the aircraft designed without any seat manufacturer or airline input? The trend in premium seating has been clear for some time now, and therefore I cannot believe the aircraft wasn’t designed with this type of seating in mind in the first place.

Basically, I don’t think Airbus would have a leg to stand on if they end up in court, and to be honest its worrying that even MDD could design long fuselage aircraft that didn’t bend!!!:diablo:

Wow. Thanks for the interest in this thread.

Southend is a nice little airport, I visited it once when they were holding a recruitment day. I was successful in getting a job, but at that time I believe they only had one flight a week on a Saturday afternoon to JER, which was operated by a Flybe Dash8-Q400. Don’t know whether any other airlines have announced any services since then, but I do know that the management of SEN are actively looking to attract more services from Flybe and other similar airlines as soon as their new £2m terminal and rail station is built. I remember reading an article about it in a magazine, the CEO of the airport said that SEN-AMS would be a great route to start off with, but I am not so sure because SEN does have some disadvantages:

1) It is within close proximity to Stansted, so services from SEN are going to have to be as cheap or cheaper in order to attract people from STN.

2) The length of the runway is limited to what type of aircraft can land there – they cannot accept a full 737-800!

3) The airport is also limited in ways it can expan further because although the local population are supportive of growth, they do not want to see it turn into a ‘major’ airport, and also there is the railway line that prohibits the expansion of the runway!

Try here for SEN info…

http://www.eastofenglandobservatory.org.uk/download.asp?id=14373

I was thinking of a few, all from London though:

Bristol
Birmingham
Cardiff (with passengers, unlike BMED!:D )
Norwich
East Midlands

Does anyone think that if a new link was established between these two airports that it could/would be successful at all? What type of modern-day aircraft would be suitable for such a service?

LMAO Is it April 1st already??? I’ll answer as if you’re being serious, but I’m sure I’m supposed to take it as a joke. Lets start by looking at a few rail connections, then we’ll come onto the point about economics of short sectors, and the aircraft to operate them.

London-Birmingham – Train times approx 1hr 30mins
London – Bristol – Train times approx 1hr 20-30mins
London – Cardiff – Train times approx 2 hours
London – Nottingham (for EMA) – Train times approx 1hr 40-50mins
London – Derby (also for EMA) – Train times approx 1hr 40-50mins
London – Norwich – Train times approx 1hr 50mins

Do you see the pattern? All of the routes you have suggested are upto 2 hours from central London by train. If you were to put a flight on from any London airport to these points the time taken to get to the airport from the city centre and get checked in and boarded would mean that you’d almost be at your destination, without the flying time (accepting this wouldn’t be long), let alone considering the time it would then take to get from the regional airport to the corresponding city (remember, the train is generally city centre to city centre), some passengers may also have to pick up baggage. SO in order to make such flights succesful you would have to offset the time issue (potentially more time to fly the route than go by train) you would have to offer exceptionally low fares, and this is where the economics element comes in…

Typically such routes would have high costs, aircraft make profit when flying, not when sitting on the ground. Remembering that you need to make it cheaper than a rail fare you have to consider whether you can offset your costs.

For a start the airport charges for these short flights would be the same price as for longer flights with equivalant aircraft, but would, proportionally be a higher cost of your overall journey cost, and this would add a lot of impact to your costs. This would make it difficult to absorb your fixed costs into each ticket price (management pay, office rent etc) because you’d be trying to cover the basic costs of the flight.

Secondly, the type of aircraft suited to short hops come with high seat/mile costs, and so unless you’re planning to use a 747-400D for such services then this is going to be an expensive element of your flight for such a short sector.

I will explain two examples, firstly, the Air Wales service from Swansea/Cardiff to LCY. Whilst we can accept that they never had the most succesful business model, including marketing, this service always suffered because they couldn’t make enough yield (profit per pax essentially) at the fares they needed to charge to attract people away from rail. Another example, and one I know more about, is the Sheffield City – LCY service. Again here the rail link between the two points was very good, and the demand for air services was very low because the fares had to be so high to cover the costs. Business travellers tended to prefer the rail link because they could work more efficiently during their city to city service.

So basically, no the services would be extremely difficult to operate.

You could just do it in excel or access.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Chornedsnorakack strikes again.

Wow, so, from this we can see that you know how to look up information on the internet, the same information that the rest of us could look up if we wanted.

Can I ask, WHAT was the point of this thread???

There are already 10 320s on order for delivery during the period Nov 07 to Dec 08, G-EUUS to G-EUUX and 4 aircraft as yet unregistered.

What’s not clear to me is are the 4 mentioned today over and above these or is BA talking (spinning) about firmed-up options we’ve known about for some time as if they are new?

Any ideas?

1L.

The source states, that following this order, BA now has 14 on firm order, so I guess they are in addition.

Also 4x A320s

They’ve also ordered a further 4x A320s for delivery from 2008.