I never compared the sales of the A380 to the 787. Not sure how anyone could claim that I did

Ship 741: The market for A 380 has proved much much smaller than what Airbus had predicted. The comparison with 787 which sold 800 planes in 3-4 years is ridiculous.

I’ve highlighted the appropriate text in bold for you 😉

EDIT: I think there’s been some confusion, I was referring to Merlin2’s comment – not yours Ship 741 🙂

Ship 741: The market for A 380 has proved much much smaller than what Airbus had predicted. The comparison with 787 which sold 800 planes in 3-4 years is ridiculous.

The A380 was never going to sell as many frames as the 787… The same as the 747 was never going to sell as well as the 737.
Bigger aircraft are less likely to sell than smaller, cheaper, ones.

In fact, you could argue that that the market for single-deck twin-aisles is far smaller than Boeing predicted.
Boeing originally forecast they would need to sell 1,100 787s to break even – this has subsequently risen to 1,500 and may rise further still.
At least Airbus managed to meet their original break-even forecast.

I hope there aren’t any ‘easing on the pressures facing airlines in Iran’…

Let’s just take a step back and look at why Iran has sanctions in the first place; Iran is, as I’m sure you’re aware, in the process of developing nuclear weapons. With Iran having an unstable government, there’s no telling if these weapons are just for deterrence. I’m sure the last thing anyone wants is to wake up in the morning to see a nuked Israel on page 1 of the papers.

If Iran wants the spare parts so badly, all it has to do is abandon its nuclear program.

In fact an Iran Air crash might even put pressure on the Iran government to abandon the program, to allow vital spare parts through to the airlines. So I’m really against any easing of pressures.

This kind of arrogance is typical of those who wildly overestimate their importance in the great sheme of things.

According to a Qantas statement the two customers (Dr Peter and Mrs Ann Hart) “are extremely loyal and frequent flyers with Qantas and we will be making sure that everything is as it should be next time they fly with us.”

‘Extremely loyal and frequent flyers’ suggests to me these are two customers Qantas don’t want to lose – most likely spending tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in the company.

If I was spending that much in a single airline, I too would expect in-stock pyjamas, and if I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in an airline – I wouldn’t overestimate my importance, I’d know the airline should be falling head over heals for me anyway.

if there is such a market, why aren’t more A380’s selling?

Global recession, perhaps? Don’t forget, sales for the 787 have also stalled in the past 5 years. (Boeing have sold a net total of 42 in the past 5 years… To put that in perspective, in the past 5 years – airbus have sold a net total of 68 A380s)

I would like to see some of the big US airlines order some, but I suspect that’s not going to happen any time soon.

I think the fact AA only just recently ordered the 77W (to become the first US 77W customer) says a lot about the US airlines in general.
Despite the good old American ethos of ‘bigger is better’, this quite clearly doesn’t follow trough when it comes to airliners. If one airline can only just get its act together to order the 77W, an A380 order is years off.

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I’m a believer in the A380’s future success. Take the 747, for example. In the first 10 years after its launch (1966-1976), it had only sold 286 frames (most of which were for a single customer, PanAm)… Sound familiar?

The fact of the matter is this – the long term trend of oil prices is only going one way, and that’s up! Sooner or later, or more likely a slow progression over the next few decades, passengers will care less about frequency and more about price when it comes to booking tickets. When that day comes, the A380 will rule.