One remarkable thing is, that it sports a 14.000ft runway.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0505030031012318.htm
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/76a8e306-bb74-11d9-911a-00000e2511c8.html

Not so remarkable really. Many Middle Eastern airports have very long runways due to the temperatures experienced. Aircraft need more runway length when taking off in hot conditions. Add to that the altitude of Tehran and aircraft will also need longer runways. In total these factors come together to form ‘Hot and High’ runway conditions, in which aircraft are operating in less dense air, effecting their runway performance.

Although there are some shorter runways in the Middle East there are some near to or greater than this length…

Doha 15,000ft
Riyadh 13780ft

Also the lengths of runways in Iran is very long generally. ..

Shiraz 14,219ft
Zahedan 14,000ft

It makes the difference between a profit and a loss ,

As mentioned in another thread somewhere, it was once said that an airline could operate a 747 profitably across the Atlantic witha belly hold full of cargo and no passengers.

One thing that seems to overlooked by most is these aircarft don’t just carry passengers, if they have a half passenger load ,it means more cargo can be loaded , therfore profit
Most airlines dont make much money on the passengers, but they do make a lot on the cargo
Kevin

Thats isn’t exactly true. Passengers can be VERY highly profitable. Anyway if you half the number of passengers then you don’t necessarily increase the amount of cargo that can be carried. For a start there is only a finite amount of cargo space (even if the cargo can be havier because of less passengers) and unless the aircraft is a ‘combi’ and currently there is no A380 Combo being offered. The type of high yield cargo tends to be light weight but often bulky and therefore saving passengers weight isn’t necessarily that great. Routes such as LHR – JFK or LHR – LAX could easily carry a full pax load and a ful cargo load in the A380, and therefore a half full plane would not be as profitable.

OK, the thread has been merged into the thread I was looking for…..so read above…

But BA focuses on premium service. Frequency is part of that service.
Flying an A380 half empty is not viable when you can fly a 777 full.

Now are you sure you just don’t prefer BA not operate them because they’re Airbuses Sandy? 😉

Indeed frequency is extremely important, however 10 services a day to NYC is more than enough frequency, if BA wanted to preserve slots at heavily constrained LHR then A380s would be great, even 4 frequencies from one airline ona long haul route si very good. Typically high frequency Long Haul services includes a single daily service, and this is typically sufficient for the business traveller, many of whom spend at least 3 days at a long haul destination. This is not day return trips we’re talking about here in Europe. BA could operate A380s and increase the number of connecting passengers, but the cost and effort involved in that would not be worthwhile…but only at this stage. I think BA will eventually look at higher capacity aircraft again.

here we go, discussed in more depth here, hope the link works…

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?p=617567#post617567

Edit by GA: I’ve merged this new thread with one that rdc1000 has linked to above, so there’s no need to follow the link. 🙂

A jaded question with disputed answer

Some, like I beleive the A380 is not for BA. They have been slowly replacing the 747 on some routes with their 777s. I beleive BA, with all their slots at LHR will favour frequency. 7 flights for the LHR-JFK service using 744s and 777s rather than 4 A380 flights.
Frequency give flexibility and the current trend show PAX want flexibility.

Others argue that BA must get the A380 to compete one on one with Virgin and other competitors. A fine theory but it disregards BAs current policy of frequency.

I disagree with this to some extent. Routes such as LHR – JFK would not really see reduced frequency, it would simply be that BA would have to sell more economy seats. If you look at the Virgin business model they can use A380s because they are still heavily leisure orientated. They will not be reducing any frequencies with the introduction of the A380.

We recently had a long debate about this matter on the forum, I will try and think of the topic and find you the link. Basically the A380 doesn’t currently fit with BA’s business strategy. The airline has focused on premium traffic, both for short and long haul, and this means that they have moved further from connecting low-yield traffic which typically fills the back end seats of large long haul aircraft. The use of 777s and (to some extent on high demand long haul routes) the 747s allows the airline to maximise premium seating and offer less economy seating. In order to fill the A380 the airline would have to fit more economy seats and to fill these would need to have more connecting traffic, which simply isn’t the primary business model for the airline at the moment.