Airbus delivers 100th A380 !

[JF Mezei]

Airbus delivers 100th A380

> http://www.airbus.com/presscentre/pressreleases/press-release-detail/detail/airbus-delivers-100th-a380/

Malaysia, upon getting its 6th A380, also got the 100th A380. (The press
release doesn't specify if this is the 100th "commercial" A380 being
delivered, of the 100 A380 that was built (including test articles)

So far, the A380 has carried 36 mlllion passengers in 100,000 flights.
It would have taken 140,000 flights for the 747 to carry same amount of pax.

An A380 takes off or lands every 6 minutes. 140 flights per day.

By my calculation with fleet size of 100, this means a 17 hour average
flight length including ground time. While there could be a number of
14-15 hour flights, I suspect most would be in the 10 hour range
(looking at Dubai's geographical position, it is about 10 hours to
europe and 10 hour to australia)


A380s serve 32 airports so far, about 50 more airports expect to get the
A380 soon.

Asia-Pacific has 45% of demand, Middle East 23% and Europe 19%.

##
Since 2006, the A380 has registered repeat orders by satisfied customers
every year, bringing the total order book to date to 262 from 20 customers.
##

So, in the past 6 years, they got no new customers. And the order book,
while just above the original 250 aircraft break even point, is still
quite a ways to reach the assumed current break even of 400. Not the
commercial failure of Concorde, but not exactly a huge success either.


So Airbus has another 5 years before it needs to think about what to do
with the production line when they start to go from how many aircraft
per month they build to how many months per aircraft as the original
orders are all delivered and they just have to build "on demand" when
each small order trickles in.


With the airline consolidation that is happening in the USA where only
Delta, United and American will remain as international carriers, I
wonder if their fleet philosophy/religion might start to change and
allow 747/380 class aircraft for long hauls, now that each airline
combines traffic from 2 or more former airline.


Consider American/US-Air. If they are forced to let go of some LHR slots
to get their merger approved, they'll no longer be able to increase
capacity if they are already at max frequency and using their biggest 777s.

Similarly, United may have shed its old 747s during its bankrupcies, but
now that it is merged with Continental, wouldn't it have sufficient
traffic to Asia/Pacific to justify bigger metal than 777s ?

Or are the airlines happy to live in a market where demand is always
greater than supply since it allows for higher yields ?
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[Roland Perry]

In message <514C86B9...@vaxination.ca>, at 12:28:41 on Fri, 22 Mar
2013, JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> remarked:

>By my calculation with fleet size of 100, this means a 17 hour average
>flight length including ground time. While there could be a number of
>14-15 hour flights, I suspect most would be in the 10 hour range
>(looking at Dubai's geographical position, it is about 10 hours to
>europe and 10 hour to australia)

Oh please! I've done UK-Dubai-Australia (and back, obviously) on
Emirates, and almost none of those flights are A380 (rather than 777's).

Also the flight times are 7hr + 14hr, so quite asymmetrical.
--
Roland Perry

[Uwe Klein]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <514C86B9...@vaxination.ca>, at 12:28:41 on Fri, 22 Mar
> 2013, JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> remarked:
>
>> By my calculation with fleet size of 100, this means a 17 hour average
>> flight length including ground time. While there could be a number of
>> 14-15 hour flights, I suspect most would be in the 10 hour range
>> (looking at Dubai's geographical position, it is about 10 hours to
>> europe and 10 hour to australia)
>
>
> Oh please! I've done UK-Dubai-Australia (and back, obviously) on
> Emirates, and almost none of those flights are A380 (rather than 777's).
>
> Also the flight times are 7hr + 14hr, so quite asymmetrical.

A380 daily utilisation across fleets is above 14 hours/day at the moment.
( ~13hours/day 20 month after eis)

uwe

[JF Mezei]

On 13-03-22 15:10, Roland Perry wrote:

> Oh please! I've done UK-Dubai-Australia (and back, obviously) on
> Emirates, and almost none of those flights are A380 (rather than 777's).

Emirates is the largest (or one of the largest) 380 airlines. I believe
they have 2 daily flights into Sydney, an A380 and a 777.

With Qantas moving from Oneworld to an alliance with Emirates, things
may change and some 777s may be upscaled to 380s if Qantas/Emirates
merge passenger loads.


What is more interesting is the fact that Emirates seems to be winning
its bet to create a Dubai hub and become an important world carrier.
That is a huge accomplishement to not only crease a new airline but also
a new long haul hub that isn't on many great circle routes.

As a result, Emirates huge orders for A380s, A350s (and Boeing 777, I
believe they are the largest operator of 777s) and no longer more or
less fantasy orders with high chance they would be cancelled, but the
aircraft are actually being delivered and used.

However, the success of Emirates, and success of the A380s by the few
airlines who operate does not necessarily translate into more A380s
being ordered. The number of routes that are a perfect fit for A380 is
limited.

And even if North America were to change religion and start to buy some
A380s, we're talking perhaps 20-30 orders to operate specific routes,
and that wouldn't be enough to bring the total orders to 400 or whatever
the real breakeven point is.

Airbus also has to be concerned about the 787-10 and 350's greater
operating efficienies cannabalising 380 sales, just as the 777 did to
the 747. And that would mean that Airbus would have to work on
improvements to the A380 to lower its operating costs further. Harder to
cost justify when they original design hasn't broken even yet, but if
they don't do it, they are pretty musch assured the 380 will not reach
break even.

BTW does anyone know what the highest number of 747s were ever in
service at the same time ?

[Roland Perry]

In message <514E8648...@vaxination.ca>, at 00:51:20 on Sun, 24 Mar

2013, JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> remarked:

>> Oh please! I've done UK-Dubai-Australia (and back, obviously) on
>> Emirates, and almost none of those flights are A380 (rather than 777's).
>
>Emirates is the largest (or one of the largest) 380 airlines. I believe
>they have 2 daily flights into Sydney, an A380 and a 777.

And they fly an A380 from Dubai to Heathrow (I've been on it)

>What is more interesting is the fact that Emirates seems to be winning
>its bet to create a Dubai hub and become an important world carrier.

It was clear they'd won that, when their new terminal opened four years
ago. (It's the biggest building in the world, by floor area, over 18
million sq ft).
--
Roland Perry