Could The Airbus A380 Be Redesigned To Make It Profitable?
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- Опубликовано: 3 мар 2024
- In 2019, many aviation enthusiasts (avgeeks) were saddened to hear the news that the Airbus A380 program was coming to an end by 2021. In many ways, the news wasn’t surprising. Indeed, many airlines fell out of love with the aircraft, claiming it was too expensive to run and hard to fill up. But if Airbus were to redesign the A380, could it be made profitable and attractive to carriers? What would need to change to convince airlines it was THE aircraft to operate?
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One change I don’t think is often considered is if an A380 variant was built for high-cycle rotations. That would be appealing to many Asian airlines that flight high-capacity aircraft on short routes. I recently flew Asiana’s A380 between Seoul and Tokyo, a 90-min flight. It might not be a game changer, but it would make the A380 a more flexible and compelling offering. Maybe it would’ve been kept being built for longer.
Airlines all over want to reduce is their fuel bill if it could have been made a 2 engine A380 might have had more life in it. Those engines are expensive in fuel cost and maintenance costs
The dealbraker would have to be a 2-engine A380.
Higher amounts of composite material would certainly be beneficial and folding wings would potentially enable greater airport flexibility but as long as there have to be 4 engines to get it off the ground, I highly doubt many airlines will adopt any updated A380.
There are engines that can power this option, but this was considered unrealistic because it would require a redesign of the rear section, rudder and rear stabilizers due to huge asymmetric thrust in the event of only a single engine in operation. It would be a challenge to get it through ETOPS without major redesign.
You mean the dealbreaker would be 4 engines.
If memory serves me correct, the wing was actually designed for the higher weights of the larger A380-900. A far less beefy wing would certainly loos quite a few tonnes.
Yet the wing spars were developing cracks. I say keep them beefy.
BA reactivated all of their 380s since they retired all 747s, right?
Given the delays in the 777-9 program and the fact the A350-1000 is not completely ideal for busier routes, no wonder why the A380 could end up operating to at least 2040.
I'm surprised the military never took an interest in the A380, particularly second hand examples. Can you imagine how many troops and equipment you could inside one if you stripped out all the luxury fittings.
The A380's freight issue is volume and weight, it has volume but can't handle much more weight than 747-F and military likely would want a one size fits everything solution from personnel to heavy equipment.
But it could transport over 800 people in high density configuration
@@RasscasseThe C5 exists for military, not as many troops sure, but currently can carry *slightly* less than the 747-8f and still 81 troops. 350 all troop config
Commercial passengers are not good for military.
They are alright to transport VIPs but it's too fragile and underpowered to get any military missions done.
In the special occasion where they need to transport hundreds of people, they just sent two military planes or make two flights.
No point in keeping and maintaining A380 for the few and very rare tasks it would work on...
commercial aircraft does not meet military specs.
Would the folding winglets really help that much? If one of the issues is that there isn’t enough demand to fill an A380, how many destinations that don’t have A380 gates already are popular enough to fill an A380 with fold up wings? Unless of course you’re Emirates?
Depending on how they fold, you could have multiple A380 from different airlines at the same time in one airport. British Airways flys the A380 into DFW but Emirates flys the 777 there and in IAH Emirates flies the A380 and BA flies the A350-900, maybe there is not enough space at existing airports for several of them to park?
I think it's inevitable that we see another aircraft at the scale of the A380. If it were possible to swap to a two-engine configuration, I'm sure the situation would drastically change in favour of such a type.
Whilst I do not disagree with your comment, however you already have a two engined version in the form of Airbus Beluga XL.
@@robshipway2269 The Beluga is a A320 not a A380. The A320 airframe is ETOPS compliance, the A380 is not single engine rated.
@@PAC-fp9hya330 not 320
The 747-8 wasn't even profitable despite supporting more airports, cargo, and having better engines. Good luck, bro.
The Freight version would have required significant re-enforcement over thge passenger model so it would have required further complications rather than just a direct switchover
Interesting that Emirates fly Up to 11 daily flights into 3 London airports. First time I flew one was 2 weeks ago and it is so comfortable. Passengers love them . Airlines not so.
That’s a good point. How many triple-7s will it take to match that passenger load. And how many additional slots do LON airports have? All those slots will soon be filled with puny A321XLRs from what I read.
I know EK fly to LHR and LGW. What is the 3rd airport in London?
@@edicant1967 They’ve flown into STN on charter. I guess that’s proved the concept?
While I appreciate this channel, the topic has already been thoroughly discussed. Aircraft manufacturers respond to the preferences of airlines. If airlines are not interested in operating large four-engine planes, manufacturers will not invest in developing or redeveloping them. Let's be pragmatic. The A380, for example, was predominantly utilized by Emirates, while other operators either had a limited number of aircraft or retired their fleets.
Agreed. Unfortunately, I do believe that the era of the quadjet has already come to an end. If anything has been made clear in the aerospace industry, its that less engines and less fuel burn is much better for both cost and efficiency.
@@hydroworldoutlook5447 I'm a huge enthusiast of large jets; however, the fundamental goal of air travel is to reach one's destination. Recently, I took a flight on an A321 between JFK and DUB, and despite being a narrowbody aircraft, it provided a remarkably comfortable flight experience.
@@hydroworldoutlook5447 Yup, the only other operator I see still open to quad jets is the freighter business. And as the video stated, ups and fedex were open to a feighter a380. But since airbus didn't develop into it more or even designed a conversion for that role, the current operators are left trying to figure out a way to offload a plane that would just be used as a parts bin for the remaining ones still flying.
A380 stretch using RR ultrafan is an obvious solution for emirates, but that's just one customer.
Making a twin engine variant with shorter fuselage would be pretty attractive for asian high density / short distance routes.
I realise that passengers love the A380. However, Airbus is thought to have lost more than around half of its 30 billion costs. Agreed that some of the tech may have been repurposed for the newer generation of airplanes. In order for Airbus to invest in the additional resources required to achieve the desired efficiency targets, they will need to get orders from at least another 3 airlines the size of Emirates. The juice just ain't worth the squeeze. There aren't many airlines that can boast a seat occupancy factor of over 95% whilst operating a 100 A380s. Airbus would do better to focus on airplanes having a bigger market and wider appeal amongst airlines. With Boeing embroiled in all their issues, Airbus find themselves in a position now where they can't be as easily bullied or manipulated by the big carriers.
I love flying the A380 and have like others below thought of a two-engine version, a full carbon edition, and always concluded that these are so obvious that of course Airbus have considered these. When the day is over, it's probably the lack of development of business models that keeps the super-high-capacity airplanes un-attractive - but it could be super great to see A380 or next gen in the skies :-)
Singapore 🇸🇬 Airlines still have 12 Operational Airbus A380
But A380 is my least favourite aircraft model of this Airline!
Yes,would love to see an Airbus A380 PLUS! ❤
It always amazes me seeing footage of an A380 landing at Knock airport.
You forgot one point about the A380's problems: its lack of capacity for cargo. It has a very limited space for cargo, once all the passengers' luggage is loaded.
Could’ve done a combi a380 with half of the ground floor passenger section to cargo.
You can't just separate a zone in the aircraft and say "This is for cargo", that's why you have specific aicraft variants to operate cargo transportation. As for the case of the A380, the airframe design doesn't allow it to be converted to cargo whitout changing the whole concept. Althought theoretically it's an interesting idea, I don't see it happening. And it was mentioned in the video that Airbus mentioned it but didn't go deep on the topic. We'll have to see!
Edit: It would be interesting if they thought about the possibility to become a competitor with the A124 with a possible A380F
@@Joao-dr7ndare you implying that "combi" configurations are not possible?
@@Joao-dr7nd737-200C? Also the 747 had combo variants so should be possible
With increasing fire protection standards, a combi configuration is rarely practical.
@@ViktorFromDK
Very true! I flew on a KLM 747 (-400C?) from Chicago to Amsterdam. One of the crew actually escorted me and my traveling companion into the section. It was HUGE… very impressive sight to behold!
they could use the xwb97 that equips the a350-1000 as they have already done in tests, as long as there is interest from the companies
Globalization was promising a great future in the '90s. I think, Europeans were anticipating an uplift in per capita income especially for China and India (over 3 billion people in total). That would trigger a sizable increase in Intercontinental Travel which A380 is built for. That would require dozens of A380s in service, which did not realize.
Another factor, security measures imposed by the US has destroyed the airlines, air travel became a torture. Tighter visa requirements, the pandemic also added to reduction in number of passengers in Intercontinental Travel.
A380 is a technological marvel and will come back in an Improved more efficient version.
Salute to those Engineers, Policy Makers, Managers and Bean Counters who created the A380
I always wondered if A380-1000 (an imaginary version) could be used in India's domestic aviation as a rail replacement e.g. between Kolkata Mumbai Delhi and Chennai. With a trijet configuration perhaps.
It was always my view that the A380 would be in a class of its own when airport slot constraints got very serious. That hasn’t happened as yet, and was effectively pushed back by COVID-19. At some time a more cost efficient version of the A380 will be needed, but who will have the deep enough pockets to do all the development work?
Great content!
My 2 cents worth;
1. A project to reduce the weight on 787 by employing composite is less effective than what many believe. In particular, the copper layer makes it expensive and difficult to produce (safety necessity against lightening strike). The key problem is the autoclave to bake the huge pieces cost enormous amount to produce and operate. Unless there is a significant demand, making an autoclave of that size and cost is unlikely to be economical.
2. Folding wings would be a great idea. One of the key constraint has been the wing span and cost of refitting airports. However, this may reduce the range.
3. The only way that will ensure this plane is profitable would be to somehow develop an enormous engines and use 2 engines only. Then again, that will take decades.
Fortunately, global passenger numbers are picking up and the airport slots are getting more expensive (and limited). This may bring the need for such plane but there does not appear to be an overwhelming economic evidence to support such large and inflexible plane.
8:52 Unfortunately, no, I do not. Remember, the A380 was also built for a hub-and-spoke airline service model, which is less favored over a point-to-point service model these days. In today's world, people care much more about the frequency and flexibility of their flights versus how large their plane is. Being able to hop on a flights to your destination at different times of the day is much more appealing to travelers who need to have options for departure times versus being confined to one or two departure times a day. So even if the A380 could be redesigned or resurrected, it would still not be as successful as smaller twinjet aircraft. Therefore, I would not count on anymore double-deck, high-capacity aircraft anytime soon. Sorry.
Yeah that's somehow true, but the to counteract the increase in airtravel with more and more small Airlines doesen't seem susitainable either. Airports need to be also developed for whatever concept is best for counteracting CO2 emissions and so on. Hub and smoke would make sense, if come close with a big plane powered bei suistainable fuel and hop an a small electric plane for example, i can't imagine the other way would be able to work as efficiant.
@@dirtykraut I think the choice of multiple flights a day is one thing, but also hub and spoke is a PITA. As a Scot who flies the pond reasonably often I'd much rather spend 6 icky hours going non-stop on an A321 than an hour flying to London or Amsterdam or Dublin, then waiting for connections, then another 7 hours on a big plane. The joy of missing a connection then being held up for 11 hours...!
Unfortunately it's not going to happen, Airbus were perhaps a tad premature in scrapping the build rather than moving forward with the 380 plus, it's a pity that we will probably never see a new very large 4 aircraft again. Be thankful that the 380 is still in service and mostly loved by its passengers who are fortunate to fly on one.
Trouble is its size removing frequency of flights on a route !!
Not every one wants to fly on the one or two slots between destinations
Depends. Emirates runs 13 A380 flights a day (I think) out of UK airports.
It's perfect for busy routes out of busy airports. There is quite a few of those, and already the only alternative for some routes is more airports. In the UK it would probably be cheaper for the airport operators or the Gov to pay Airbus to build a bigger A380neo, manufacture them and give them to Emirates free of charge than it would be to build a new airport.
im surpised british airways didn't try to buy more a380s considering the constrained slots at heathrow
As a Dane I saw the first A380 promotion flight arriving ind Cph. Airport, which is large enough to operate them and has facilities to operate these huge planes. I think they still fly to Asia with some?
Overgrowth of capacity is a real concern
A new Double Decker Aircraft is more likely the far future.
I agree with Tim Clark.
For now there’s A350/777x.
But for folding wingtip, Would it mean a reduction in fuel tank volume(thus impacting the range) since the 777X folding wingtip cannot carry fuel.
Move the cockpit up, the nosewheels back, and put a nose door and freight ramp in front. Massive contiguous cargo bay with both internal decks removed.
Stands to reason that there will be other twin deckers built, probably need to work on weight and fuel saving. Not sure a twin engine will cut it at present. Came before its time but the logic of them still holds if projected air travel growth continues.
Having flown Qatar London to Brisbane via Doha recently, I can say that the A380 leg between London and Doha was a delight compared to the 777ER leg between Doha and Brisbane. I wish the aircraft had been reversed, but the A380 could not fly that far sadly. The onboard experience was SO much better on the A380 - same cabins / food etc., but the A380 felt much lighter, more spacious, "cleaner" air (I suspect lower perceived altitude / higher air pressure onboard) and overall a much better experience.
Add more composite. Folding wings and improved engines. Add a quick load robotic loader with quick loading removable palettized seats to actively reconfigure the aircraft at the gate to be a mix-cargo type based on passenger seat bookings.
Now that's innovation. 🎉😊
Yes definitely and Eversince the Rival Boeing 747-8 intercontinental Passenger Variant came and lured some Airlines to order the Big Boeing Aircraft or smaller Efficient Airbus A350XWB-900 and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Aircraft
It is clear that no one needs such a monster. The only thing that can be done, it seems to me, is to redesign the aircraft and turn it into a kind of analog of the Antonov-224
A composite A380 with twin engines would be the sweet spot. American carriers never took up the A380 so getting them to buy would help
My opinion is make one or 2 of the following version: Either a combi with more cargo ability, or a reengine the whole thing or just give it 2 massive ass GE9X engines or equivalent to decrease fuel consumption and add folding wing tips while at it to make it smaller and fit smaller gates to destinations that have crazy demand but not able to host the A380.OR we could just re engine it and keep it a 4 engine, give it a folding wing, or just see what Emirates wants and make that since they are the only ones able to bank roll the thing
I am so tired of this worn-out question. The A-380 is dead. With roughly and only 250 airplanes sold, it never came close to repayment for the boondoggle it is. The question is not terrible, however, because hypotheticals are sometimes fun. It really comes down to whether the A-380 could be improved enough to make another go. As is, the aero qualities are quite good. There is a hidden weight penalty to mention, nor is the fuel burn the best of breed because the only current engine at the top of game for FOUR engine wings, with total thrust requirements over 300,000 pounds, is the GEnx, so very un-European. No engine maker, not Rolls-Royce either, can afford an engine program for a low-sales model. I suppose you COULD redo the fuselage, entirely of composite carbon fiber. None of these ideas FIX the elephant in the room (not the airplane). The aircraft is both load-factor challenged and destination-limited, which means it only has a few places to go and not enough bums in seats. It was designed around a world that never came to be. Put another way, Hub and Spoke and the 80-meter-box were either of on the way out or never to be. With few exceptions, Point to Point has taken over entirely, and the 65-meter box rules. Airbus would need to play the 777x trick-fold the wingtips to fit additional gates. Truth is, part of the weight issue is the A380-800 has the larger wings designed for the A380-900-bigger than the airplane requires. It is dead weight you cannot take off without another billion-euro programme, why they gave up and put them on anyway. No additional airports will build additional gates and terminals to accommodate the outsize airplane as is. I am not sure we will ever see a 777-10 either, because the solutions we have or will soon have solve the majority of problems very well. It is completely okay to love the airplane, or feel sad about current retirement trends. It is only interesting because it is so big. Beautiful? Hmm.... Eye of Beholder I guess.
Airlines, including UPS do wanted a A380F. Imagine the great capacity it will have,and A380 plus freight?
The only problem is not low demand, uneconomical or any other except unique equipment (not jetways) needed. As the second deck will also need to be loaded with cargo, there will be a need to buy another kind of ULD loaders,however a kind of an elevator inside the aircraft would also count as a choice.
I see more of something like a composite twinjet similar in size to a 747-8 happening. Something like giant a350 or Dreamliner down the line .
I reckon that the next extra large passenger plane will have the same origins as the 747, which was a development of programme that eventually produced the Lockheed Galaxy. Both that and the C17 will need to be replaced and it would make sense for the airforce to commission a new design, which would cut back on development costs needed by manufacturers.
DARPA and or the USAF have done a request for a blended wing multipurpose cargo tanker
I think it is very difficult to re-design A380 as twin-engine airplane(you need two insane-sized engines even bigger than GE9X) so maybe trijet is optimal solution?
Something I've been wondering recently is if a triple engine A380 would be feasible nowadays.
The GE9X with it's takeoff thrust of about 110.000lbf can compete with the Trent 970-84 in terms of pure thrust alone in a 3 vs 4 engine setup
Though I imagine it'd need an extensive redesign of the wings and tail section to accomplish that. Assuming it'd even be technically possible to place one of those enormous engines at the tail like with the older DC-10 and MD-11.
Another question would obviously also be if the plane is still capable of performing a dual engine takeoff in case of an engine failure during accelleration on the runway.
But yeah, that's just been a thought experiment of mine recently and I have no engineering background, so it's hard for me to judge how possible something like that would actually be in reality.
But a wonderful imagination
in the end the advantage of having less pilot costs don't balance out the lack of flexibility. also the single point of failure becomes to important. small plane breaks, small problem.
To be honest, a smaller A380-600, shorter wings to accommodate 4E runways, with 2 UltraFan engines may appeal airlines.
To me, if Airbus has developed the A380 without considering the planned 900 version, they could design it a little bit optimized for the 800 size and role, to make it more appealing and successful.
It'd have to be a twin or tri-jet if it wants to be more competitive.
Good idea
Ryanair: $5 flights to the States. LOL
It would be great!
No doubt there will be those who will argue about the technicalities and just how good the A380 could be.
Of course the A380 can be made much better. No doubt the operating costs could be reduced significantly as well.
But all this avoids the elephant in the room. Any manufacturer needs to be certain of a level of sales which firstly makes a profit, and secondly, the space and resources required aren't better put to use manufacturing other model types?
If air travel continues to increase, the move towards point to point will not be sustainable. There just are not enough 'slots', and through necessity, there will have to be a move back towards 'hub and spoke'
The only question then will not be whether airlines will be screaming out for anything the size of an A380, but whether there are enough screams to justify manufacturing the volumes required to make a profit.
While it could be feasible to improve on the A380 designs, thanks to the expiry of many of the grandfather rights the 747 relied upon, it could even be cheaper to start from scratch than ressurect the 747.
Even if there were sufficient market demand to support more than one super jumbo, it may be difficult for a clean-sheet design to compete with a first upgrade.
I am not sure if there has ever been a sustained demand sufficient to support more than one super-jumbo.
Nor am I confident that Boeing would be either in the financial position to undertake the task, or be able to acquire sufficient resources over and above what they desperately need to deal with their current issues.
They could make a twin engine A380NEO using the new Rolls Royce UltraFan, and re-winged (like the new 777X) with new Carbon Fiber Composite wings
@ 7:03 "Many airlines have activated their A380s"...
**shows 787 overhead panel**
I think Airbus should pay you for your analysis!!
I THINK THAT AIRBUS SHOULD OF NEVER STOPPED BUILDING THE BEAUTIFUL JET !! I THINK THEY WILL START BUILDING THE A380 IN THE FUTURE !! A GREAT JET THAT FIR THE MOST PART HAS HAD VERY FEW PROBLEMS !! GO AIRBUS
FOR
Only an A380 built with composites could be light enough to be powered by (possibly yet to be developed in the future) greener twin engines. Such a plane may succeed if more airports have the infrastructure to handle so many passengers per flight. All I can say is that I have traveled in Economy class with the most comfort in the A380 compared to all other models.
I would say the main issue with A380 is that it was designed sort of as a last gen aircraft. Consider that the closest prior aircraft of the same generation, the 777 was introduced more than 12 years prior.
Considering that that generation (i call it gen 4) was kicked of with the A320, then followed with the 747-400, the A330, the A340 and the 777. They where all introduced with in 8 years. Granted 737NG series coming a bit later, but it was a upgrade, so that is not quite the same thing. Same with the 767-400 that arguably also is a gen 4 aircraft.
Then 12 years later A380 was introduced basically in the same generation. 4 years later gen 5 aircraft 787 come around, than 4 years after that the A350. On top of that the 747 get a gen 5 upgrade. When we talking about something as large as A380 the ~20 fuel saving with the gen 5 engines is really make it or break it sort of diffrance.
If cause, yes, Airbus was going to make a Neo/plus upgrade after A350, A320 and A330. The order made sense, but it kind of doomed the A380. The A380 really needed to be first. When the 747-100 was introduced it was the first gen 2 airliner around.
The second reason is not really that its to large, but it have a to wide of a gap to the closest aircraft under, making it sort of all of nothing deal with very hard to soft up capacity.
The statement that A380 is uneconomical because its 4 engines is kind of nonsense. A380 have a bout the same capacity per engine as a A330, and comparing to the A330CEO that have similar engines, the A380 is still more efficient. Of cause that don´t help the A380 when its pretty much only compared to the 787, A350, A330neo and the 777x,.
Making a all composite A380 makes no sense. Making a aircraft compost every geometric detail have to be change. Even if made to the exact same spec as the A380-800 it would be pretty much a full redesign.
If making a full redesign, it make more sense making a aircraft that have a more optimal size. Say 30% above the A350 or 777x, and order two huge engines from how ever make them. Removing all the drawbacks (4 engines, to large of a size, outdated layout. It would probobly not be that hard to scale up the A350 making it a 1½ floor aircraft. Probably being able to reuse most of the components from the A350, that by the way is way of a cheaper aircraft.
It's not nonsense a quad jet is an outdated relic far too expensive to maintain burns through a lot of expensive fuel and also requires infrastructure to support it. It is uneconomical hence why Airbus pulled the plug
@@Legion849 It is nonsense.
Its nothing magical that happen when you put 4 engines on a aircraft that make it less efficient.
The A330CEO and the A380 have basically the same engines. (Well the A380 engines are slightly larger).
The engines on the A380 is just as efficent as the one at the A330CEO...
The issue is not that A380 have 4 engines, but that its engines are the one similar to the A330CEO, and not the A330NEO
The main problem with A380 design is usually missed.
Airbus designed A380 with two variants in mind: -800 (current) and -900 (future, stretched) with common wings, wing box and tail structure.
This made current A380-800 tens of tons heavier than it could have been. Had Airbus focused on a single variant, it could have been much more efficient and it might have been still in production.
Airbus is making good aircraft, but their commercial thinking is weak.
Large quadjets are a breathtaking sight when I see them flying the heavens..
Yes
Should not rule out the possibilities as majority airlines have brought the variant back
It’s all an interesting subject to play around with, but how big is the demand?
Emirates took about 50% of the 251 that they made originally.
How many A380 Neos would they take? 200 tops?
Simple Flying reported recently that the A350 has broken even after delivering around 600 aircraft.
The A350 was a clean sheet design and cost about 11 billion .
So, using those figures of a rough guide even if Emirates ordered 200 A380 Neo, it’s not going to pay enough back, unless Airbus could really keep the costs down of the adaptations.
Obviously it costs a lot less to modify an existing platform, But Airbus would need to do it for about 2 billion for it not to be a loss on 200 orders.
Would that be possible ?
Would you want to do it if you could only sell 200 ?
Or could they make it an attractive enough proposition to other carriers ,that they might get 500/600 orders ?
Then you could maybe spend 4/5 billion on the adaptations and cover the costs.
I’m just kicking it around and musing on it is all.
Is it technically and economically (fuel saving) interesting to make a HYBRID A380?? Should Airbus innovate by keeping its 4 engines but combine the 2 engines use kerosene and the two other run on hydrogen or electric??
Of course this needs to be an important part of an overall redesign with further weight loss by using more composite materials and so on.
Two engines A380 for the win
Rolls-Royce should make an Engine called Trent 9000 based on the Trent 1000 or XWB
Like the airlines didn't know about these limitations before they purchased the planes?
They should have make the upper deck a casino type party deck and operate them more in line like a cruse ship.
Airlines operate on bums on seats!
@@AnthonyTolhurst-dw1nc - Raise the ticket price and make it a luxury brand service. I’ll just bet that there people who are willing to pay a modest premium to avoid the riffraff.
They could make it single deck, use more carbon and make it twin engine. Perhaps change the name to something like A350.
A more composite airframe with a redesigned cockpit aka a350 or dreamliner style sleeker sweeping nose resulting in lets say a 25% weight decrease.
Swap out the 4 engines for 2 of those 777X engines and tweak them for performance, the A380 has 4 engines at 70,000lbs thrust each, the 777X has 2 that produce upto 115,000 each, but with the A380 losing significant weight 2 engines would save a further 6.5000kg
Redesign the interior to had smaller overhead bins and weight limits of 5kg per person. perhaps 2000kg in materials saved.
each passenger can bring on 1X 10KG to go in the hold free.
Remove all the paper materials and junk in the back of seats, digitise the lot or put stickers on the backs. possibly 100kg
Remove the ICE systems and move to streaming, , no more screens and cables, saving of around 8000kg.
Probably a better system for dealing with toilet waste so as not to need to carry several tons of water per flight.
slimmer chair tops where the screens used to be, no need to sacrifice comfort but no need to have a thick rear chair if there is no display and cables.
I reckon with modern design techniques and ideas you could reduce the A380 by 35 -40%.
Of course this is never going to happen as the program is dead and modern aircraft are designed more for point to point routes over hub and spoke if i'm not mistaken.
The next big thing in aviation is to make project sunrise a commercial reality, 24 hour flights connecting major cities on all continents.
No. Oversized. Until 850 PAX required on a regular basis.
They just need to stretch it a bit and swap in A350's engines. Airbus already tested the A350 on A380 before
Yes it could. Lighter, with a different wing, aerodinamic improvements, new engines but the point is, is there a market for it on the western companies? No.
With respect, this topic has been flogged to death.
Emirates is my most favourite A380 airline!
I thought the A380 was already a plane with some percentage of composite materials, making it a lighter aircraft than say, a 747. But I can't imagine how lighter it could get by making it like an A350/787 Dreamliner.
Also, countries. I think that's a proper plane for countries that have no issues with petroleum. In Venezuela, it's incredible we don't have gasoline for the cars, but the planes are guaranteed to receive all the fuel they need. One of the big reasons why we have 737-200 still flying, and the flag carrier having A340-600s. Why to put a big plane in a country like this one? Well, you could make a big hub for Latin America right in the middle for those kinds of planes. It could be in this zone.
nahh bro 💀look at the vid duration 🏢🏢✈
I don’t have any doubt that if Boeing brings back the B747 then Airbus will bring back a large plane to compete with it. An A390 is rumored. What Airbus must do is design an aircraft that can be as good for cargo as for passengers like the B747.
Twine engine 747 is the way to go
Within the first minute they spoke of not being able to fill the A380 and yet later they are talking about a new high capacity variant. Really? The A350-1000 holds around 400 seats, fits 44 LD-3 containers under the main deck for cargo revenue, uses carbon fiber to reduce weight and has two engines. It would cost WAY too much to redesign the A380 to make it profitable.
The A350 is a great plane and it is selling wonderfully with over 1,200 orders to date. Why throw money that was and will always be a white elephant?
How powerful would an engine neeed to be to simply slap one engine each side?
Drop two engines off the A380 add afterburners rocket assistance and an electric catapult launcher system (got to panda to green) FTW
It's obvious that such aircraft has a future only as a freighter.
Just like the original 747 was only able to be born as a result of a military program, the next large quadjet will likely come whenever the USAF needs to replace the C-5 Galaxy. There is simply no other way manufacturers will be confident in having enough volume to break even, let alone make money. Neither China nor Russia have the ability to design and build something that big, Ukraine's aviation industry is too busy with the war effort to think about designing new aircraft, and EU banks aren't likely to support Airbus without a very solid business case, given they lost billions on the A380.
I guess Airbus will be busy producing more 737 competetion aircraft. It's a booming market.
How long will Global Airlines last with the A380
I have heard that the A380 needs the four engines for the weight on wing, and twin Ultrafans, even if moved out, would not suffice. I think BA, Qantas, Singapore and Emirates would have to agree to finance the development of a Neo before Airbus would look at it in any depth, so basically, at present, it has a snowball's chance in hell.
😂 when you ask the wrong questions … you find the wrong answers 😂 (folding wings with 4 engines 🤣, all composite body etc … )
There is bound to be another super-jumbo at some point; it's an economic inevitability.
The only way A380 could be guaranteed a future was for a much more efficient engine to be available. Since these weren`t forthcoming it died a death. Sure Covid sealed it`s fate more quickly but the writing was on the wall. Could AB resurrect A380 with better engines? I think it could be possible with perhaps an UltraFan version of RR T-7000 or T-XWB 84 plus some weight saving construction materials in the frame, coupled with a stretch making a -900 version as was originally envisaged. I`d like to think it could happen because this aircraft never reached it`s full potential unlike the B747 & I think it deserved to provide a decent profit considering the design & build effort but into it by AB.
As Airbus chief lamented:
The engine makers "lied" to Airbus.
If you follow commercial jet engines development, they don't get more efficient over time, they just become powerful.
Boeing 737-200 (P&W JT8D-17, 17,000 lbf rated turbojet) burns 1,200 kg per hour at cruise from each engine, while carrying 130 passengers at 58 ton MTOW.
Boeing 737-300 (CFM56-3B1, 22,000 lbf) burns roughly the same amount, while carrying 149 passengers and more cargo at 60 ton MTOW.
Boeing 737-800 (CFM56-7B2, 26,000 lbf) also burns about the same, while carrying 180 passengers and at 79 ton MTOW.
The new revolutionary engine that skipped the A380 project, utilised in 787 and subsequent aircraft models (including A320neo and 737MAX) have about 10% less specific fuel consumption.
Boeing 737MAX8 (CFM Leap-1B-27, 27,000 lbf) finally burn 1,050 kg per hour at cruise from each engine, while carrying 189 (normal) to 210 passengers (Ryanair) at 82.6 ton MTOW.
Imagine aerodynamically improved A380neo with Trent1000 or GEn-X-derived engines, the calculation would easily match low cost carrier pricing point at long haul flights. The full service airlines could fit even more outrageous apartment duplex or sky condos at lower cost.
Alas, no one is waiting 1 more hour for everyone to board. The turnaround time of this massive jet is just a super massive nightmare. Me and a group of colleagues were returning from a holiday island, some of us board an A320 flown by low cost airline, the other one is a 747-400 replacing the regular 737-900ER due to high season. The 747-400 boarded 20 minutes earlier. We in the A320 were already on the runway, while the 747-400 is still boarding. We arrived 1 hour earlier, despite the 747-400 being slotted to depart first.
It doesn't affect Emirates, because they only have single massive hub in Dubai (DXB), where A380's main job is to funnel as many people as possible into DXB. DXB's strategic location, in the middle of two major economic centres (Western Europe, East Asia-Australia) also helps them to find that many passengers.
Make it a cargo carrier
Once the 777-9 goes into service, most of the A380s will be gone for good.
sainnt...let's wait and see, the 380 is going to be around for some time sorry to disappoint.
@@r12004rewy I don't want to see the A380 go, airlines do. Except Emirates of course.
Okay guys this is me joining the ring in the fire this is my take on the video first of all in a380 neo would not be the best solution now here's the problem and this is a very serious problem it is a big plane for sure yes airlines may want a big plane but unfortunately this is not the way to go and the way to go is something very different the airbuses already making now if you go with the a350 - 1000 this is a big but let's say you make the a350 - 2000 this is a plane that would have the same seating capacity as the A380 and it would be way more feasible option because you have twin engines and this plane is already being made and plus the dash 900 of the a350 is already being produced and sold around the world so an a350 - 2000 would be the right choice for airlines who want high capacity planes now think about this what if Emirates wants to put their showers and the bar into this plane they can easily do that with the a350 - 2000 what is Etihad airlines wants to introduce the residents suite and the apartments suite that they have on their a380 well that can also be done a350 - 2000 my main point is at this would be better for Airbus and the a350 - 2000 would be big but could fly to many airports that the a380 cannot fly to so I think this would be a much more viable solution for airlines who really want a big plane but don't want the disadvantages that a380 have and I completely agree think about this now Heathrow airport will not need to be as so congested as it is right now and also other airports that are congested can also benefit from this - 2000 variant that I mentioned I think this would be a good thing for Airbus it'll be good for Tim Clark from Emirates and I think all in all everybody will win on the table that is my thoughts on why the A380 Neo should not be built and way the a350 - 2000 should be the a380 replacer that Emirates wants I think this would be a good choice for all airlines but let me know your thoughts in the comments section I would love to hear your replies on this I think Airbus should make the a350 - 2000 which will be a twin-engine 800 Seat in a single class configuration and 512 in a three-class configuration but anyways let me know your thoughts I would love to hear your replies on this thank you simple flying for everything
"Old Aircraft make flag carriers nervous" - *Laughs in Lufthansa repainting a 30-year-old A320 into their new colours*
Reconfigure Cabin layout too