Said thr exact same thing when I saw the headline.
"Airbus has taken a €463m charge for shutdown costs, but it is expected that the repayment of government loans could be waived to help cushion the blow. "
Lovely.
Well on a more optimistic side, the less dealings with the UAE the better really.
Unfortunately this plane just came a decade or two too late.
I keep hearing this quote but I dont get it.
The plane didn't come too late. The plane is a good plane, passengers love it. The downside is that it is very big, and very expensive to fly and since many airports are too small for it, it didn't really succeed globally. I expect they'll make a return in the future when more airports expand as planes get larger.
Most airlines want smaller wide-bodies with improved fuel economy. The days of flying double decker airliners are coming to an end.
iirc it costs too much to fuel these big things in an ever increasingly fuel conscious world. Same with the 747 which is an endangered species. These planes require scale to be profitable. If you're not flying with a full cabin, you're burning money. Much better to go with smaller, more fuel efficient planes like the 787.
4 engine planes are also killers on maintenance. It use to be a major cost savings back in the day when 3-4 engine allowed you to skimp on maintenance protocols for international flights.
The heavy checks for these types of planes are also pretty expensive, enough that companies are parking their 747-400 that still have plenty of millage left.
It failed because people fucking hate multi-stop flights. The a380 is a niche product in a world where all airliners want to get their passengers to their destination in one hop on small planes that go very far away
Airliners that wants them already own them.
Personally I much prefer flying on the A380 than the 777 or 787. Seat size aside there's just more space to get up and move around on the plane.
what sort of length flights are you referring to? maybe this is because i cant sleep on planes but flying long haul id much rather take 2 6-7 hour flights and spend an hour or two walking around a nice airport than spend 14 hours on one plane. the worst flight i ever took was BKK to HEL where as the nicest was one that got delayed by snow so i missed my connection and got put in emirates courtesy hotel for the night
I'm fucked if i'm going to have to do another 29+ hour flight in one sitting.
It's pretty much the result of this, and as has been said already a large majority of airports being unable to handle a plane that large. It's pretty much why they canned the freight version as well.
I remember when I was working on the A350 XWB design it was pretty well known that a large amount of the initial orders were carriers switching orders from 380 to 350, and when they announced the 350 orders for the 380 stalled as well.
It'd be interesting to see in the future what the A320 replacement looks like in terms of taking the advancements from 350, and further developments in composite fuselages etc.
That all said, the A380 was an amazing plane to do bits and bobs of work on, the west factory building in Broughton was definitely a sight to behold in terms of a manufacturing facility, just purely based on the sheer size of the place.
I've flown on a A380 a couple of times and it's a very nice aircraft. From what I remember it was a lot more sound proofed then other aircraft I've experienced so you didn't hear the engines/outside as badly as other planes during take off, flight and landing.
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