A380 unveiling, 1/18/05, Live.

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

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Well, here we go, guys. It's tomorrow, streamed live on Airbus'
website. ZDF (Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen, Ch. 2, Germany) and CNN
International are going to be covering it as well. Starts tomorrow at
10am GMT (2am PST). Agenda as follows (times are GMT):

07:30
Joint press conference with Noel Forgeard, Airbus President and Chief
Executive Officer, and A380 customer Chief Executive Officers.

10:00 (with live video feed on airbus.com site) Arrival of Heads of
State and Governments
- Mr Jacques Chirac,President of the French Republic
- The Right Honourable Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- His Excellency Mr Gerhard Schroder, Chancellor of the Federal
Republic of Germany
- His Excellency Mr Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, President of the
Government of the Spanish Kingdom

11:05 [with live video feed on airbus.com site]
- Beginning of ceremony.
- Aircraft Reveal.
- Inauguration of the aircraft.

11:35 End of ceremony.

All feeds will be available at
http://www.airbus.com/events/a380_reveal/event/index.asp .

Enjoy.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.sbcglobal.net/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

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[nobody]

A Guy Called Tyketto wrote:

> http://www.airbus.com/events/a380_reveal/event/index.asp .

Has anyone been able to get any image/video feed from Airbus's terrible
web site ?

BBC started to cover the ceremony, but decided to switch back to news.

[JohnT]

"nobody" > wrote in message
...
>A Guy Called Tyketto wrote:
>
>> http://www.airbus.com/events/a380_reveal/event/index.asp .
>
> Has anyone been able to get any image/video feed from Airbus's terrible
> web site ?
>
> BBC started to cover the ceremony, but decided to switch back to news.

It is currently on BBC News 24.

JohnT

[AJC]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 05:37:09 -0500, nobody > wrote:

>A Guy Called Tyketto wrote:
>
>> http://www.airbus.com/events/a380_reveal/event/index.asp .
>
>Has anyone been able to get any image/video feed from Airbus's terrible
>web site ?
>

No, but you can see it at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news


>BBC started to cover the ceremony, but decided to switch back to news.


It is being broadcast on ZDF, Euronews and CNN in Europe
--==++AJC++==--

[nobody]

Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:

The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
a fuel efficient diesel car.

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
in >::

>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>
>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>a fuel efficient diesel car.

How many passengers would such a car carry?

[AJC]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:50:20 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote:

>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
>in >::
>
>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>>
>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>
>How many passengers would such a car carry?
>

Not a relevant statistic either. Factor in the average load factor of
a fuel efficient diesal car and an A380 and then you might have a more
meaningful figure.
--==++AJC++==--

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:15:04 +0100, AJC > wrote in
>::

>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:50:20 GMT, Larry Dighera >
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
>>in >::
>>
>>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>>>
>>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>>
>>How many passengers would such a car carry?
>>
>
>Not a relevant statistic either.

Given the OP's comparative statement above, the implied "statistic"
was apparently relevant to her.

>Factor in the average load factor of a fuel efficient diesal car
>and an A380 and then you might have a more meaningful figure.

Meaningful in what way? Am I to infer, that you find the metric of
fuel-per-passenger-mile irrelevant?

[Peter]

In article >, Larry Dighera
says...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:15:04 +0100, AJC > wrote in
> >::
>
> >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:50:20 GMT, Larry Dighera >
> >wrote:
> >
> >>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
> >>in >::
> >>
> >>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
> >>>
> >>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
> >>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
> >>
> >>How many passengers would such a car carry?
> >>
> >
> >Not a relevant statistic either.
>
> Given the OP's comparative statement above, the implied "statistic"
> was apparently relevant to her.
>
> >Factor in the average load factor of a fuel efficient diesal car
> >and an A380 and then you might have a more meaningful figure.
>
> Meaningful in what way? Am I to infer, that you find the metric of
> fuel-per-passenger-mile irrelevant?

If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
>::

>In article >, Larry Dighera
>says...
>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:15:04 +0100, AJC > wrote in
>> >::
>>
>> >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:50:20 GMT, Larry Dighera >
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
>> >>in >::
>> >>
>> >>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>> >>>
>> >>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>> >>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>> >>
>> >>How many passengers would such a car carry?
>> >>
>> >
>> >Not a relevant statistic either.
>>
>> Given the OP's comparative statement above, the implied "statistic"
>> was apparently relevant to her.
>>
>> >Factor in the average load factor of a fuel efficient diesal car
>> >and an A380 and then you might have a more meaningful figure.
>>
>> Meaningful in what way? Am I to infer, that you find the metric of
>> fuel-per-passenger-mile irrelevant?
>
>If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
>efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
>going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
>compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.

More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.

[Thomas Borchert]

Larry,

> How many passengers would such a car carry?
>

four, including the driver. Available from Volkswagen in Germany as we
speak. See
http://showrooms.volkswagen.de/vwcms_publish/vwcms/master_public/showro
oms/de/lupo/lupo_3l_tdi/home.frameset_outer.html

But indeed, the comparison is of limited value, as anyone would find
out who'd try to drive his VW from the US to Europe.
--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[alexy]

nobody > wrote:

>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>
>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>a fuel efficient diesel car.

Interesting stat, but the followup discussion here points out a
question on exactly what this stat is. Is it fuel burn per passenger
mile at max passenger load (i.e., the 380 carries 110 times as many
passengers as the 5-passenger car, but burns less than 110 times as
much fuel per mile) or fuel burn per passenger mile at typical
passenger loads (i.e., the 380 at a typical passenger load of, e.g.,
450 carries 300 times as many passengers as the car at a typical load
of 1.5 people, but burns less than 300 times as much fuel per mile.

Obviously, such a statistic based on capacity is far more significant
than one based on average use. 3 liters/passenger per 100KM? I suspect
there are MANY 5-passenger cars that will go further than 100KM on 15
liters of fuel, but not may that will go 100KM on 4.5 liters of fuel,
if 1.5 is the average load of the car.


--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

[AJC]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:04:52 -0500, alexy > wrote:

>nobody > wrote:
>
>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>>
>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>
>Interesting stat, but the followup discussion here points out a
>question on exactly what this stat is. Is it fuel burn per passenger
>mile at max passenger load (i.e., the 380 carries 110 times as many
>passengers as the 5-passenger car, but burns less than 110 times as
>much fuel per mile) or fuel burn per passenger mile at typical
>passenger loads (i.e., the 380 at a typical passenger load of, e.g.,
>450 carries 300 times as many passengers as the car at a typical load
>of 1.5 people, but burns less than 300 times as much fuel per mile.
>
>Obviously, such a statistic based on capacity is far more significant
>than one based on average use. 3 liters/passenger per 100KM? I suspect
>there are MANY 5-passenger cars that will go further than 100KM on 15
>liters of fuel, but not may that will go 100KM on 4.5 liters of fuel,
>if 1.5 is the average load of the car.


Exactly. Commercial aircraft, and especially long-haul commercial
aircraft operating the sorts of routes for which the 380 is designed
have far higher occupancy rates than cars, so the number of seats a
car has is irrelevant.
--==++AJC++==--

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 15:34:37 +0100, Thomas Borchert
> wrote in
>::

>But indeed, the comparison is of limited value,

Right. Although it considers fuel efficiency, it fails to address the
difference in speed.

[Tom Peel]

A Guy Called Tyketto wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> Well, here we go, guys. It's tomorrow, streamed live on Airbus'
> website. ZDF (Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen, Ch. 2, Germany) and CNN
> International are going to be covering it as well. Starts tomorrow at
> 10am GMT (2am PST). Agenda as follows (times are GMT):
>
> 07:30
> Joint press conference with Noel Forgeard, Airbus President and Chief
> Executive Officer, and A380 customer Chief Executive Officers.
>
> 10:00 (with live video feed on airbus.com site) Arrival of Heads of
> State and Governments
> - Mr Jacques Chirac,President of the French Republic
> - The Right Honourable Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United
> Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
> - His Excellency Mr Gerhard Schroder, Chancellor of the Federal
> Republic of Germany
> - His Excellency Mr Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, President of the
> Government of the Spanish Kingdom
>
> 11:05 [with live video feed on airbus.com site]
> - Beginning of ceremony.
> - Aircraft Reveal.
> - Inauguration of the aircraft.
>
> 11:35 End of ceremony.
>
> All feeds will be available at
> http://www.airbus.com/events/a380_reveal/event/index.asp .
>
> Enjoy.
>
> BL.
> - --
> Brad Littlejohn | Email:
> Unix Systems Administrator, |
> Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.sbcglobal.net/~tyketto
> PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF
>
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>
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> KtKO1b3wGgUz04XsnisDjvc=
> =ra8X
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I recorded it. 2 hours of circus, stuffed shirts, talking heads and
enough hot air to levitate the entire A380 production for the next 10
years.
The whole program must have overrun, my recorder switched off before the
plane even got shown.
What a disappointment. I finally got to see the plane in the evening
news. Nice paint scheme, but "rollout"? The plane didn't move one inch.

T.

[nobody]

Thomas Borchert wrote:
> But indeed, the comparison is of limited value, as anyone would find
> out who'd try to drive his VW from the US to Europe.

The comparison has meaning from an environmental point of view. Planes
have often been portrayed as being extremely energy inefficient,
consuming vastly more fuel per passenger than cars and generating plenty
of pollution.

This puts the 380 on roughly the same order of magnitude as very fuel
efficient cars, and gives the A380 better fuel economy per pax that
average US vehicles (which I think is more than 10 litres per 100km).

[Stefan]

nobody wrote:

> This puts the 380 on roughly the same order of magnitude as very fuel
> efficient cars

Actually, no. There are diesel cars which burn 3 litres of diesel on 100
kilometers for the *entire car*. Which means 3 litres for 4 passengers,
or even 5 if you accept to be stuffed like in an airplane.

Stefan

[Peter]

In article >, Stefan says...
> nobody wrote:
>
> > This puts the 380 on roughly the same order of magnitude as very fuel
> > efficient cars
>
> Actually, no. There are diesel cars which burn 3 litres of diesel on 100
> kilometers for the *entire car*. Which means 3 litres for 4 passengers,
> or even 5 if you accept to be stuffed like in an airplane.

Hard to fit five passengers into a modern car. Usually there are two
seats in the front and three seatbelt positions in the rear, for a total
of five occupants, one of whom is the driver.

[Peter]

In article >, Thomas Borchert says...
> But indeed, the comparison is of limited value, as anyone would find
> out who'd try to drive his VW from the US to Europe.

I dunno. Russian roads aren't interstates, but they are certainly
present.

[Peter]

In article >, Larry Dighera
says...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
> >::
> >
> >If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
> >efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
> >going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
> >compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.
>
> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.

The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
savings.

[alexy]

Peter > wrote:

>In article >, Larry Dighera
>says...
>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
>> >::
>> >
>> >If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
>> >efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
>> >going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
>> >compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.
>>
>> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
>
>The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
>savings.

True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do. Small
manpower savings to the cars! <G>


--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

[Peter]

In article >, alexy says...
> Peter > wrote:
>
> >In article >, Larry Dighera
> >says...
> >> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
> >> >::
> >> >
> >> >If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
> >> >efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
> >> >going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
> >> >compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.
> >>
> >> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
> >
> >The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
> >savings.
>
> True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do.

How do you work that out? Two pilots versus 110 drivers - the plane
clearly has the edge in manpower efficiency.

[alexy]

Peter > wrote:

>In article >, alexy says...
>> Peter > wrote:
>>
>> >In article >, Larry Dighera
>> >says...
>> >> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
>> >> >::
>> >> >
>> >> >If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
>> >> >efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
>> >> >going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
>> >> >compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.
>> >>
>> >> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
>> >
>> >The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
>> >savings.
>>
>> True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do.
>
>How do you work that out? Two pilots versus 110 drivers - the plane
>clearly has the edge in manpower efficiency.

Easy. If 550 people need to get somewhere, the odds are minuscule that
any of them are qualified to fly the 380, so they almost certainly
will be required to hire a crew (not just pilots). The probability
that at least 110 of them are qualified to drive a car is huge, so
they will not likely have to hire anyone to make their trip by auto.
And they certainly won't have to hire any pilots!

Did you notice the <G> on my original post? No one is taking this
seriously. One would have to factor in the time taken by all of the
passengers to travel by car versus plane, which would yield a huge
advantage to air travel.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

[Nik]

"Peter" > wrote in message
T...
> In article >, Stefan says...
>> nobody wrote:
>>
>> > This puts the 380 on roughly the same order of magnitude as very fuel
>> > efficient cars
>>
>> Actually, no. There are diesel cars which burn 3 litres of diesel on 100
>> kilometers for the *entire car*. Which means 3 litres for 4 passengers,
>> or even 5 if you accept to be stuffed like in an airplane.
>
> Hard to fit five passengers into a modern car. Usually there are two
> seats in the front and three seatbelt positions in the rear, for a total
> of five occupants, one of whom is the driver.

And the cars that only takes 3 liters for 100 KM is not the biggest cars
either...

If you are to compare such a car with four passengers then you would also
have to compare that to a A380 with a full maximum load of some 800 pax.

Nik

[Nik]

"AJC" > wrote in message
...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:04:52 -0500, alexy > wrote:
>
>>nobody > wrote:
>>
>>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>>>
>>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>>
>>Interesting stat, but the followup discussion here points out a
>>question on exactly what this stat is. Is it fuel burn per passenger
>>mile at max passenger load (i.e., the 380 carries 110 times as many
>>passengers as the 5-passenger car, but burns less than 110 times as
>>much fuel per mile) or fuel burn per passenger mile at typical
>>passenger loads (i.e., the 380 at a typical passenger load of, e.g.,
>>450 carries 300 times as many passengers as the car at a typical load
>>of 1.5 people, but burns less than 300 times as much fuel per mile.
>>
>>Obviously, such a statistic based on capacity is far more significant
>>than one based on average use. 3 liters/passenger per 100KM? I suspect
>>there are MANY 5-passenger cars that will go further than 100KM on 15
>>liters of fuel, but not may that will go 100KM on 4.5 liters of fuel,
>>if 1.5 is the average load of the car.
>
>
> Exactly. Commercial aircraft, and especially long-haul commercial
> aircraft operating the sorts of routes for which the 380 is designed
> have far higher occupancy rates than cars, so the number of seats a
> car has is irrelevant.
> --==++AJC++==--

On the Asia-Europe rutes I do not doubt that the plane will be more or less
full to the brim...

Nik.

[Chris]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:58:54 +1100, Peter > wrote in
> >::
>
>>In article >, Larry Dighera
>>says...
>>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:15:04 +0100, AJC > wrote in
>>> >::
>>>
>>> >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:50:20 GMT, Larry Dighera >
>>> >wrote:
>>> >
>>> >>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:31:02 -0500, nobody > wrote
>>> >>in >::
>>> >>
>>> >>>Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>>> >>>
>>> >>>The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent
>>> >>>to
>>> >>>a fuel efficient diesel car.
>>> >>
>>> >>How many passengers would such a car carry?
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >Not a relevant statistic either.
>>>
>>> Given the OP's comparative statement above, the implied "statistic"
>>> was apparently relevant to her.
>>>
>>> >Factor in the average load factor of a fuel efficient diesal car
>>> >and an A380 and then you might have a more meaningful figure.
>>>
>>> Meaningful in what way? Am I to infer, that you find the metric of
>>> fuel-per-passenger-mile irrelevant?
>>
>>If you look at the number of passengers, then the A380 is vastly more
>>efficient, because unless a car carries hundreds of passengers, you are
>>going to have hundreds of drivers and comparatively few passengers
>>compared to two pilots and hundreds passengers on the Airbus.
>
> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.

Try driving a car across an ocean or mountain range and I think the airplane
comes out more fuel efficient.

[Lee Witten]

Tom Peel > wrote in
:
> I recorded it. 2 hours of circus, stuffed shirts, talking heads and
> enough hot air to levitate the entire A380 production for the next 10
> years.

Kinda like the discussion of fuel economy here...

Seems the 'roll out' was nothing but the politicians all getting to show
their faces. I bet none of them found time to discuss the large amount of
non-EU content in the A380. Given the "51% American content in terms of
work share value" [1], maybe W should have been given a seat at the dias...

--lw--

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus

[Morgans]

"Peter" > wrote

> > >The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
> > >savings.
> >
> > True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do.
>
> How do you work that out? Two pilots versus 110 drivers - the plane
> clearly has the edge in manpower efficiency.

That is really twisted thinking. Normally, in a car, one of the passengers
is posing as the (pilot)driver. Therefore, airbus loses. Airbus - two
people that went somewhere, only because they had to, vs car - no person
went somewhere they did not have to.

Still, this is all meaningless, anyway. Not many diesel cars can drive
from New York to England.
--
Jim in NC

[Peter]

In article >, Morgans says...
>
> "Peter" > wrote
>
> > > >The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge manpower
> > > >savings.
> > >
> > > True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do.
> >
> > How do you work that out? Two pilots versus 110 drivers - the plane
> > clearly has the edge in manpower efficiency.
>
> That is really twisted thinking. Normally, in a car, one of the passengers
> is posing as the (pilot)driver.

They can pose all they want, but if they are are a passenger, they are
not the driver. The cops generally seem to work it all out when deciding
who to charge for drunk driving.

> Still, this is all meaningless, anyway. Not many diesel cars can drive
> from New York to England.

Why on earth not? Granted, they have to take a ferry over the Bering
Strait and a train under the Channel, but that's no problem.

Pete

[Larry Dighera]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:36:38 -0000, "Chris" > wrote
in >::

>
>> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
>
>Try driving a car across an ocean or mountain range and I think the airplane
>comes out more fuel efficient.
>

Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
difficult to know the truth on this issue. But that doesn't prevent
its makers from hailing it as a major European feat that will reshape
aviation. Let's discuss it further after it has actually flown.

[Nik]

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:36:38 -0000, "Chris" > wrote
> in >::
>
>>
>>> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
>>
>>Try driving a car across an ocean or mountain range and I think the
>>airplane
>>comes out more fuel efficient.
>>
>
> Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
> difficult to know the truth on this issue. But that doesn't prevent
> its makers from hailing it as a major European feat that will reshape
> aviation. Let's discuss it further after it has actually flown.
>
>
>

It was at some stage 2 percent overweight. Airbus claims that this problems
has been solved. If you really want to doubt then doubt Boeing's claims on
the 7E7. They seem so desperate now that they will be happy to promise
almost everything.


Nik

[AJC]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:32:22 GMT, Larry Dighera >
wrote:

>On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:36:38 -0000, "Chris" > wrote
>in >::
>
>>
>>> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
>>
>>Try driving a car across an ocean or mountain range and I think the airplane
>>comes out more fuel efficient.
>>
>
>Given the A380 is overweight,

Underweight actually.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aVTdVqaVmJoc&refer=europe


>over budget

By what %? How does that compare with other similar projects?
--==++AJC++==--

[Thomas Borchert]

Larry,

> Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
> difficult to know the truth on this issue. But that doesn't prevent
> its makers from hailing it as a major European feat that will reshape
> aviation. Let's discuss it further after it has actually flown.
>

Come on, Larry, you know better than that. There is no doubt the thing
will fly. Also, at this stage in the project, there is no doubt it will
sell (actually, something like 160 are sold) and be within weight and
budget limits. This is not some Boeing "project" aka pipedream where
the boss holds up a tiny model to the press. The plane is a month or
two from first flight. It is also not a company like Eclipse. These
guys mean business - and you only have to compare their sales numbers
to that of Boeing to see that they know what they are doing.

Don't fall for the Boeing propaganda...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[Nik]

"Thomas Borchert" > wrote in message
...
> Larry,
>
>> Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
>> difficult to know the truth on this issue. But that doesn't prevent
>> its makers from hailing it as a major European feat that will reshape
>> aviation. Let's discuss it further after it has actually flown.
>>
>
> Come on, Larry, you know better than that. There is no doubt the thing
> will fly. Also, at this stage in the project, there is no doubt it will
> sell (actually, something like 160 are sold) and be within weight and
> budget limits. This is not some Boeing "project" aka pipedream where
> the boss holds up a tiny model to the press. The plane is a month or
> two from first flight. It is also not a company like Eclipse. These
> guys mean business - and you only have to compare their sales numbers
> to that of Boeing to see that they know what they are doing.
>
> Don't fall for the Boeing propaganda...
>
> --
> Thomas Borchert (EDDH)
>

Inclusive of options the A380 is beyond the 250 mark. Of cause all options
might not be exercised. But chances are that at least a good deal of them
will if the thing offer what has been promised.

Nik

[Jay Honeck]

> Come on, Larry, you know better than that. There is no doubt the thing
> will fly. Also, at this stage in the project, there is no doubt it will
> sell (actually, something like 160 are sold) and be within weight and
> budget limits. This is not some Boeing "project" aka pipedream where
> the boss holds up a tiny model to the press. The plane is a month or
> two from first flight. It is also not a company like Eclipse. These
> guys mean business - and you only have to compare their sales numbers
> to that of Boeing to see that they know what they are doing.

It will be interesting to see what Airbus does with the A380's
rudder/vertical stabilizer design.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Peter]

In article >, Larry Dighera
says...
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:36:38 -0000, "Chris" > wrote
> in >::
>
> >
> >> More efficient in fuel-per-passenger-mile? Doubtful.
> >
> >Try driving a car across an ocean or mountain range and I think the airplane
> >comes out more fuel efficient.
> >
>
> Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
> difficult to know the truth on this issue. But that doesn't prevent
> its makers from hailing it as a major European feat that will reshape
> aviation. Let's discuss it further after it has actually flown.

With computers the way they are nowadays, I wouldn't worry too much
about how closely actual performance will match predicted. Airbus has
demonstrated a solid capacity to build on previous models in ever-
increasing sizes, and the only thing that's at all radical about the
A380 is its size.

Given that it's bigger than the 747 by a sizable margin, I'd say that
reshaping long haul commercial aviation is a given.

[Allen]

"Morgans" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Peter" > wrote
>
> > > >The A380 doesn't need 110 pilots to carry 440 passengers. Huge
manpower
> > > >savings.
> > >
> > > True, but it does need more pilots than 110 passenger cars do.
> >
> > How do you work that out? Two pilots versus 110 drivers - the plane
> > clearly has the edge in manpower efficiency.
>
> That is really twisted thinking. Normally, in a car, one of the
passengers
> is posing as the (pilot)driver. Therefore, airbus loses. Airbus - two
> people that went somewhere, only because they had to, vs car - no person
> went somewhere they did not have to.


Well, two people (pilot and co-pilot) plus about thirty flight attendants in
the back :)

[Thomas Borchert]

Jay,

> It will be interesting to see what Airbus does with the A380's
> rudder/vertical stabilizer design.
>

Why? A friend of mine heads the production design group, so I could
ask. but I guess you are hinting at the Queens, NY crash. Well, the
A380 will do exactly the same if you press the pedals left and right
way in rapid succession. So will any Boeing passenger jet.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[Patrick Mayer]

Hi,

> sell (actually, something like 160 are sold)

Actually, 149 as of today, including the UPS deal. The Airbus goal was to
sell 150 by mid-2005. I'd bet on them selling one piece in five months - any
deals? :-))

Patrick

[Simon Elliott]

On 19/01/2005, Thomas Borchert wrote:
> > It will be interesting to see what Airbus does with the A380's
> > rudder/vertical stabilizer design.
> >
>
> Why? A friend of mine heads the production design group, so I could
> ask. but I guess you are hinting at the Queens, NY crash. Well, the
> A380 will do exactly the same if you press the pedals left and right
> way in rapid succession. So will any Boeing passenger jet.

I was under the impression that in newer FBY aircraft the software
wouldn't allow the pilot to break the rudder or the vertical stabiliser
off.

--
Simon Elliott http://www.ctsn.co.uk

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

Thomas Borchert > wrote:

>There is no doubt the thing will fly.

True. That engineering is pretty straightforward.

>Also, at this stage in the project, there is no doubt it will
>sell (actually, something like 160 are sold)

Well, yes, but contingent on the aircraft meeting certain weight and performance
guarantees. Should they miss those by any significant amount, you will see a lot
of cancellations.

>and be within weight

Airbus has already publically admitted they have a weight problem. They think
they can overcome it. There are reasonable doubts.

>and budget limits.

And they've already admitted a rather large overrun.

[AJC]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 12:36:53 -0700, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
> wrote:

>Thomas Borchert > wrote:
>
>>There is no doubt the thing will fly.
>
>True. That engineering is pretty straightforward.
>
>>Also, at this stage in the project, there is no doubt it will
>>sell (actually, something like 160 are sold)
>
>Well, yes, but contingent on the aircraft meeting certain weight and performance
>guarantees. Should they miss those by any significant amount, you will see a lot
>of cancellations.
>
>>and be within weight
>
>Airbus has already publically admitted they have a weight problem. They think
>they can overcome it. There are reasonable doubts.
>

Airbus have publicly admitted the thing is under weight.


>>and budget limits.
>
>And they've already admitted a rather large overrun.

What is the percentage overrun then? How does this compare with
similar projects?
--==++AJC++==--

[nobody]

Larry Dighera wrote:
> Given the A380 is overweight, over budget and yet to fly, It's
> difficult to know the truth on this issue.


Noël Forgeard clarified the "overweight" issue. I believe that the
amount is quite small compared to total weight, about 1/5 of percentage
that planes are normally overweight by.


By september, I suspect that the A380 will have done enough test flights
to provide a good idea on what it will truly be capable of. That is when
we may see more airlines buying into the 380 now that they know whether
it meets its promises or not.

[nobody]

Peter wrote:
> With computers the way they are nowadays, I wouldn't worry too much
> about how closely actual performance will match predicted. Airbus has
> demonstrated a solid capacity to build on previous models in ever-
> increasing sizes, and the only thing that's at all radical about the
> A380 is its size.

Airbus also demostrated with the initial batch of A340s that it could
build aircraft that didn't meet promised performance. And there was
nothing radical about the A340.

The 380 has many new things in it.

And while AIrbus has gained much experience since the A340, and seems to
have better engines for the 380 than it had for the 340 (relatively
speaking), until the beast flies, you can't really know exactly how well
it will perform.

Now, it does look as if the odds of Airbus meeting promised performance
metrics are rising, one still has to ask whether it will be able to do
the 14,700km reange at full load, or if cargo will be limited etc etc.
Sometimes, a small difference can make a plane go from unprofutable to profitable.

And if the 380 has to slow down to meet promised range, airlines may not
be so happy either.

[nobody]

Thomas Borchert wrote:
> ask. but I guess you are hinting at the Queens, NY crash. Well, the
> A380 will do exactly the same if you press the pedals left and right
> way in rapid succession. So will any Boeing passenger jet.

Couldn't Airbus have changed the rudder to be truly FBW pon the 380 so
that the computers could prevent what happened in Queens ?

Will the 380 have ANY flight surfaces with a direct mechanical link from
cockpit in case everything else fails ? (I belive that the other
Airbuses did have one or 2 controo surfaces with direct manual links).

[Matt Barrow]

"Nik" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Thomas Borchert" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Larry,
> >
> >
> > Don't fall for the Boeing propaganda...

Great piece that Airbus (See below)

> >
> > --
> > Thomas Borchert (EDDH)
> >
>
> Inclusive of options the A380 is beyond the 250 mark. Of cause all options
> might not be exercised. But chances are that at least a good deal of them
> will if the thing offer what has been promised.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=901

"Tsunami-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it
must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against
its fishing industry.

While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its
recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines,
its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft."


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

AJC > wrote:

>Airbus have publicly admitted the thing is under weight.
>

Come on now - you know better than that. The thing is 5 tonnes over spec weight.
Here's just one current link:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1284400.htm


Other stories have quoted Airbus saying they can fix that. Maybe, maybe not. But
weight affects fuel burn, capacity and range. You can bet there are hard numbers
in every contract.

>
>>>and budget limits.
>>
>>And they've already admitted a rather large overrun.
>
>What is the percentage overrun then?

Airbus is admitting to $2B on a what was supposed to be a $10B program. Call it
20%. In large part, that overrun is attributed to the overweight problem.

>How does this compare with similar projects?

Historical comparisons are not all that meaningful. The financial world for
airlines has changed significantly in the past few years. The airlines that have
orders in now won't be affected by overruns anyway.

[Vo Gon]

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Nik" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "Thomas Borchert" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > Larry,
>> >
>> >
>> > Don't fall for the Boeing propaganda...
>
> Great piece that Airbus (See below)
>
>> >
>> > --
>> > Thomas Borchert (EDDH)
>> >
>>
>> Inclusive of options the A380 is beyond the 250 mark. Of cause all
>> options
>> might not be exercised. But chances are that at least a good deal of them
>> will if the thing offer what has been promised.
>
> http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=901
>
> "Tsunami-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it
> must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs
> against
> its fishing industry.
>
> While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its
> recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines,
> its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker
> aircraft."

Well isn't THAT special! It's pretty clear that France is being stingy!

[nobody]

AJC wrote:
> Airbus have publicly admitted the thing is under weight.

Yeah, but after the party with all those cocktails and french wine, it
isn't overweight anymore.

Besides, they haven't yet loaded the high quality toilet paper into the
aircraft's lavatories :-)

[Colin W Kingsbury]

"nobody" > wrote in message
...
>
> By september, I suspect that the A380 will have done enough test flights
> to provide a good idea on what it will truly be capable of. That is when
> we may see more airlines buying into the 380 now that they know whether
> it meets its promises or not.

OK, but none of this addresses the real core question of what the market
actually wants. I believe the A380 probably has a very good future in air
cargo, but it remains an open question how widely it will prove profitable
in passenger service. Boeing guessed right with the 747, France/UK got it
beautifully wrong with Concorde. Clearly this is the right plane for flying
from Tokyo to Singapore. I read in one story that about half of A380s are
expected to operate between just 10 airports, which is believable.

There's a question in here about how fast and in what way the market for air
travel will grow. There are to the best of my knowledge no 747s operating in
domestic service in the US (except the occasional repositioning flight) even
on trans-continental flights that are as long as trans-Atlantic routes.
Hub-and-spoke carriers are being bled to death by the point-to-point LCCs,
who mostly operate 737-size planes. But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
is larger and more sparsely populated, so similar patterns may or may not
emerge. Growth in East/Southeast Asia alone may well make the A380 a
success.

Compared to this, the 7E7 is as close to a sure thing as aviation offers, if
it meets performance goals. You're basically taking a proven design and
making it substantially cheaper to operate, which is always without question
a winning combination. All other things being equal I expect both planes to
succeed, but the 7E7 to be more profitable.

What I do question is the notion that this will somehow "transform" air
travel. How so? At best it will reduce costs by say 25%, so instead of
paying $500 for a ticket to Heathrow I might pay $375, and the flight will
still take six hours from JFK. Branson can put a trapeze and lap pool up
front but I still won't be able to afford it. It will still take off and
land at the same airports as the 747 it replaces, likely on pretty much the
same schedule. In other words, it is an incremental improvement, which makes
sense since civil aviation has for the moment peaked out. There is only one
direction left to go, and that is faster, and that requires a revolution in
engine technology. Basically you need something like the pulse-detonation
engines GE and Pratt are working on- things that provide almost an
order-of-magnitude increase in thrust per pound of fuel burned over the best
turbofans available today. But this stuff is quite literally rocket science,
and like fusion power it may lie ten years over the horizon for the next
fifty years. If it pans out, we're talking Concorde speeds at Southwest
prices, but this is something for our children more than it is for us.

Then of course there is the concept of microjets for the masses, which I
don't buy. Even if Eclipse, Mustang, A700 etc. double or triple the number
of bizjets out there, this isn't going to change how Mom, Dad, and the kids
travel on their summer vacation for the better. If anything it will make
things worse by skimming off the top-dollar customers that allow non-cattle
airlines to offer cheap fares. In the future, we all fly Southwest, and I
don't consider that progress, though for the people who used to only be able
to afford Greyhound it certainly is.

Why won't we all fly microjets? First, fuel is going to get a lot more
expensive, and microjets are not by any measure fuel-efficient. We're not
finding many new reserves and one billion Chinese are just beginning to
discover the wonders of automobile ownership. Most of us will have a hard
time flying a 172, let alone an Eclipse, when fuel costs $6-$7/gallon in
today's dollar.

Second, the air traffic system simply will not be able to handle it. There
is very little scalability left in the current system and microjet
proponents are talking about doubling, tripling, even quadrupling the number
of planes in the system. The current ATC environment was grown organically
over the course of nearly half a century and I just don't believe that Free
Flight or anything else can squeeze that many more airplanes into the same
amount of sky. Frankly we'll be lucky if we can just keep the current mess
from collapsing in the next decade.

The one bright spot in all this is that thanks to a guy with big sideburns
out in the Mojave, I just may get to see the "black sky at noon" in person
before I go off to the sweet hereafter. It may be the shortest and most
expensive vacation anyone ever takes, but for the first time since I
realized I wasn't going to ever be a NASA astronaut, the dream of space is
no longer impossible. What a world.

Best,
-cwk.

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

"Colin W Kingsbury" > wrote:

>Why won't we all fly microjets? First, fuel is going to get a lot more
>expensive, and microjets are not by any measure fuel-efficient. We're not
>finding many new reserves and one billion Chinese are just beginning to
>discover the wonders of automobile ownership. Most of us will have a hard
>time flying a 172, let alone an Eclipse, when fuel costs $6-$7/gallon in
>today's dollar.
>

This argument is semi-legit. I say semi, because noone really knows what will
happen with energy prices in the future. As new energy sources are put online,
the value of the older ones (like oil) will tend to stablize.

>Second, the air traffic system simply will not be able to handle it. There
>is very little scalability left in the current system and microjet
>proponents are talking about doubling, tripling, even quadrupling the number
>of planes in the system. The current ATC environment was grown organically
>over the course of nearly half a century and I just don't believe that Free
>Flight or anything else can squeeze that many more airplanes into the same
>amount of sky. Frankly we'll be lucky if we can just keep the current mess
>from collapsing in the next decade.

This is a common misunderstanding and reflects a lack of knowledge about how
commercial aircraft fly, how big a domestic airspace the US has and where the
chokepoints are.

Our current ATC system is built around virtual highways in the sky. It can't
deal very well with traffic that wants to directly from point A to point B.
Instead, traffic going into / out of /between major cities is funnelled into a
small number of very specific tracks.

While that's not the most efficient use of airspace or fuel, under normal
weather conditions the only bottlenecks are those handful of large city
ariports. Microjets aren't intended to fly you from ORD to LAX. They're designed
to pick up that out city passenger and drop them off at another out city.

Bad weather is more of a problem, as that can close some of those virtual
highways in the sky, but it tends to be localized around a certain area. Getting
around it funnels more traffic into lesser routes, slowing things down a bit.
Micros will be able to fly a bit higher than standard commercial aircraft which
will help a bit (think 3D), but still will add some congestion.

The way around that is the relatively slow conversion from the current airways
based system to a more direct point to point system. The current planes have no
problems doing that, but upgrading ground ATC computers is taking a long time in
the US.

Other parts of the world (like Australia) have completed the upgrade and have
much more flexibility to direct route aircraft. Eventually the US will get there
as well.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
"Clark W. Griswold, Jr." > wrote:

[snip]
> This is a common misunderstanding and reflects a lack of knowledge about how
> commercial aircraft fly, how big a domestic airspace the US has and where the
> chokepoints are.

The chokepoints are the airports in the US. Freeflight isn't going to be much
help in the US.

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

Bob Noel > wrote:

>The chokepoints are the airports in the US. Freeflight isn't going to be much
>help in the US.

The chokepoints are a handful (less than 12) high volume airports. Those
airports are high volume primarily due to the hub connections through those
airports. Eliminate or reduce the hub traffic and those airports are much less
likely to be choke points.

Freeflight doesn't help directly with approach or departure contraints, but it
increases the options for getting planes away from an airport and combined with
point to point service (either RJ or microjet), helps indirectly spread the
traffic out.

[Morgans]

"Bob Noel" > wrote in message

> The chokepoints are the airports in the US. Freeflight isn't going to be
much
> help in the US.
>
> --
> Bob Noel

That is one opinion. Others have just as much value.

Point to point will let the "hoard" of VLJ's fit in to the small airports,
which should relieve some of the pressure off the big airports. They will
also not have to arrive at the "big push" times at the major airports.
--
Jim in NC

[Colin W Kingsbury]

"Clark W. Griswold, Jr." > wrote in message
...
> Bob Noel > wrote:
>
> >The chokepoints are the airports in the US. Freeflight isn't going to be
much
> >help in the US.
>
> The chokepoints are a handful (less than 12) high volume airports. Those
> airports are high volume primarily due to the hub connections through
those
> airports. Eliminate or reduce the hub traffic and those airports are much
less
> likely to be choke points.

Clark, I'm an instrument-rated pilot so I know how "the system" operates.
There's a lot more to it than archaic technology, though that certainly
plays a role.

There's a number of things you need to consider. First, we're not talking
about reducing the overall volume of traffic-far from it. In extremis,
you're replacing one 757 with three or four RJs and a dozen microjets. For
the most part, it places just as much of a load on the system to move one
6-seat Citation Mustang as it does to move that 757. So "reliever" airports
(the secondary fields within 50nm of the big airports) are only providing
relief until they start having a critical volume of traffic, at which point
they become just as big a chokepoint.

Second, you need to consider the seriousness of what we're fooling with
here. The need for safety should be obvious, and we know our current system,
clumsy as it appears, in fact provides outstanding safety. Australia? Big
deal. They've got the landmass of a third of the US and maybe 5% of the
traffic volume. Ask any air traffic controller and they'll tell you "Free
Flight" works great so long as you don't have that much traffic to handle.

The single biggest problem with free flight is that without extensive
reliance on computers, it simply can't work. Even a dozen of the best
hotshot center controllers can't handle fifty or a hundred aircraft on
random routes. In the current system those dozen people can handle a lot
more planes, even if the radar goes down. Then there's weather to think
about: the minute the thunderboomers show up everyone's going to start
diverting around it. Again, you can't manage this without computers. There's
simply no way for humans to resolve all the potential conflicts, and even
with computers this is going to be messy. This is placing an absolutely
enormous amount of faith into something with so many points of failure. Just
look at those computer failures at Comair over Christmas and imagine if
those were running the live ATC system. Scary stuff.

Free Flight is not an incremental step--it's a complete change of doctrine
and I don't trust making that kind of leap. I've seen companies with far
smaller and simpler problems screw up technological transitions of far
smaller complexity. How many errors can we tolerate before we get it right?
There's plenty wrong with the FAA but when you get down to it they are
probably one of the most competent of the federal bureaucracies simply
because the public will not tolerate failures when the mistakes are counted
in dead bodies. The Department of Education can swallow billions with
nothing to show for it but if two 737s collide it's going to be front-page
news for a month. None of this airspace-managemt stuff is theory- it's 100%
practical knowledge gained in the school of hard knocks and not to be
dismissed as simply "highways in the sky."

Best,
-cwk.

PS- If the subject interests you, a Center Controller in Atlanta writes a
column on a site called AvWeb that often touches on this subject. His
opinions are often controversial and many think he's just an old warhorse,
but he has spent enough time in front of the scope to earn the right to his
opinions: a good sample is this one:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/186059-1.html

[H Pinder]

It would be normal corporate behaviour to calculate the "liters per
passenger per 100 Km" using the most optimistic factors. Such as maximum
number of seats, every seat filled, best city pair, no delays of any type,
etc. etc.
The reality will be interesting to see.
Harvey
"alexy" > wrote in message
...
> nobody > wrote:
>
> >Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
> >
> >The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
> >a fuel efficient diesel car.
>
> Interesting stat, but the followup discussion here points out a
> question on exactly what this stat is. Is it fuel burn per passenger
> mile at max passenger load (i.e., the 380 carries 110 times as many
> passengers as the 5-passenger car, but burns less than 110 times as
> much fuel per mile) or fuel burn per passenger mile at typical
> passenger loads (i.e., the 380 at a typical passenger load of, e.g.,
> 450 carries 300 times as many passengers as the car at a typical load
> of 1.5 people, but burns less than 300 times as much fuel per mile.
>
> Obviously, such a statistic based on capacity is far more significant
> than one based on average use. 3 liters/passenger per 100KM? I suspect
> there are MANY 5-passenger cars that will go further than 100KM on 15
> liters of fuel, but not may that will go 100KM on 4.5 liters of fuel,
> if 1.5 is the average load of the car.
>
>
> --
> Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked
infrequently.

[AJC]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:21:47 -0700, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
> wrote:

>AJC > wrote:
>
>>Airbus have publicly admitted the thing is under weight.
>>
>
>Come on now - you know better than that. The thing is 5 tonnes over spec weight.
>Here's just one current link:
>
>http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1284400.htm
>
>

The thing is 0.4-0.5% under weight. Here's just one current link:


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aVTdVqaVmJoc&refer=europe



>Other stories have quoted Airbus saying they can fix that. Maybe, maybe not. But
>weight affects fuel burn, capacity and range. You can bet there are hard numbers
>in every contract.
>
>>
>>>>and budget limits.
>>>
>>>And they've already admitted a rather large overrun.
>>
>>What is the percentage overrun then?
>
>Airbus is admitting to $2B on a what was supposed to be a $10B program. Call it
>20%.

15% apparently!


>In large part, that overrun is attributed to the overweight problem.
>
>>How does this compare with similar projects?
>
>Historical comparisons are not all that meaningful. The financial world for
>airlines has changed significantly in the past few years. The airlines that have
>orders in now won't be affected by overruns anyway.

--==++AJC++==--

[AJC]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:42:51 GMT, "Colin W Kingsbury"
> wrote:

>
>"nobody" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> By september, I suspect that the A380 will have done enough test flights
>> to provide a good idea on what it will truly be capable of. That is when
>> we may see more airlines buying into the 380 now that they know whether
>> it meets its promises or not.
>
>OK, but none of this addresses the real core question of what the market
>actually wants. I believe the A380 probably has a very good future in air
>cargo, but it remains an open question how widely it will prove profitable
>in passenger service. Boeing guessed right with the 747, France/UK got it
>beautifully wrong with Concorde. Clearly this is the right plane for flying
>from Tokyo to Singapore. I read in one story that about half of A380s are
>expected to operate between just 10 airports, which is believable.
>
>There's a question in here about how fast and in what way the market for air
>travel will grow. There are to the best of my knowledge no 747s operating in
>domestic service in the US (except the occasional repositioning flight) even
>on trans-continental flights that are as long as trans-Atlantic routes.
>Hub-and-spoke carriers are being bled to death by the point-to-point LCCs,
>who mostly operate 737-size planes. But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
>is larger and more sparsely populated,

What definition do you use that makes the US larger than Asia?

--==++AJC++==--

[AJC]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:15:05 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
> wrote:

>
>"Nik" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> "Thomas Borchert" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > Larry,
>> >
>> >
>> > Don't fall for the Boeing propaganda...
>
>Great piece that Airbus (See below)
>
>> >
>> > --
>> > Thomas Borchert (EDDH)
>> >
>>
>> Inclusive of options the A380 is beyond the 250 mark. Of cause all options
>> might not be exercised. But chances are that at least a good deal of them
>> will if the thing offer what has been promised.
>
>http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=901
>
>"Tsunami-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it
>must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against
>its fishing industry.
>
>While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its
>recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines,
>its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft."


You'd be wise to do better than 'inform' yourself from an American
'Neolibertarian community portal' (their description, not mine!). The
melodramatic start to your quote indicates the level they work on, and
my how they twist reality. There is a long running trade issue between
the EU and Thailand, (there is also between the US and Thailand)
concerning shrimp trade. With no relation to this Thai airways placed
an order for some new Airbus aircraft, as have their competitors in
Malaysia and Singapore. The Thai government is now trying to use Thai
Airways legitimate order for the aircraft they need, to influence
(blackmail I suppose in the language of your favourite American
Neolibertarian community portal), the EU in this dispute. For the
facts read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4054251.stm
--==++AJC++==--

[Thomas Borchert]

Simon,

> I was under the impression that in newer FBY aircraft the software
> wouldn't allow the pilot to break the rudder or the vertical stabiliser
> off.
>

Could well be.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[Thomas Borchert]

Nobody,

> Will the 380 have ANY flight surfaces with a direct mechanical link from
> cockpit in case everything else fails ? (I belive that the other
> Airbuses did have one or 2 controo surfaces with direct manual links).
>

You and the opther poster are right: The 380 is FBW entirely, as are the
320 and 330/340, but not the 300/310.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[Thomas Borchert]

Colin,

> Compared to this, the 7E7 is as close to a sure thing as aviation offers, if
> it meets performance goals.
>

If it does. And then there's the A350...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[nobody]

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
>> travel will grow. There are to the best of my knowledge no 747s
operating in
> domestic service in the US (except the occasional repositioning flight)


It wasn't that long ago that United was advertising 747 service between
JFK and LAX on TV.

Since then, the airline stopped competing on service, and competed on
frequency. So that meant downsizing aircraft and putting more of them.
And that has led the airlines to very inefficient schedules and costly
fleets that have far more planes in them than necessary.

the 737 is also Southwest's achile's heel. Legacy carriers might come
back with 747 or 38 to serve betwene large cities with fewer
frequencies. The lower operating costs per passenger would allow them to
undercut Southwest.

In other words, the minute the legacy carriers stop competing on
frequency and number of cities served, you might find the return of the
big planes in the USA between the large cities.

And if Virgin can undercut the other carriers on USA-London flights,
what will BA and AA and UA do ? Lose money on the runs by matching
Virgin's fares ?

They should know by now that you can't charge a premium for higher
frequency. Passengers will flock to the low cost carrier to such an
extent that the LCC will have to increase it frequencies to match demand.

> Hub-and-spoke carriers are being bled to death by the point-to-point LCCs,
> who mostly operate 737-size planes.

The whole "hub and spoke" thing is a sham. Southwest is probably just as
hub-and-spoke as legacy carriers are. They just know how to operate a
hub efficiently and they only serve profitable routes and only have the
capacity that demand can fill.

When you look at the TV programme "Airline", it seems clear to me that
both LAX and Midway are operated as major WN hubs.

Does Southwest ever sell A-B-C cheaper than it sells A-B ???? The legacy
carriers often do that. And they probably lose lots of money just trying
to match another airline.

If B is a large city, than it is only normal to have A-B and C-B
flights. It makes B a hub. But that doesn't force that airline to sell
A-B-C ticket for a low price to matych a LCC that does A-C on a smaller
aircraft that matches the actual demand between A and C.


> But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
> is larger and more sparsely populated, so similar patterns may or may not
> emerge. Growth in East/Southeast Asia alone may well make the A380 a
> success.

On the other hand, the window for trans-atlantic flights is fairly
narrow and it becomes less economic to run multiple flights at about the
same time of day compared to running one bigger plane.

In terms of having diverse fleet, consider that even Southwest is
starting to have it, with 737s of different sizes and range. So they
can't subsitute any 737s for a broken on at an airport.

> Compared to this, the 7E7 is as close to a sure thing as aviation offers, if
> it meets performance goals.

The 7E7 is a sure thing because the market to replace aging 767s is there.

However, consider long haul flights of more than 8 hours. They require 2
crews. Running 2 7E7s on a 14 hour flight instead of 1 380 requires
double the number of pilots (8 instead of 4) and probably more FAs as
well (but less than double).

And because this is more than 12 hours, you require even more planes,
and thus more crews. For very long range flights, it doesn't pay to
fragment your schedule and serve smaller towns. For very long flights,
the transfer costs at the hub/gateway are smaller than the savings from
operating less aircraft on the very long stretch across the ocean.


> You're basically taking a proven design and
> making it substantially cheaper to operate, which is always without question
> a winning combination. All other things being equal I expect both planes to
> succeed, but the 7E7 to be more profitable.

The 380 is to the 747 what the 7E7 is to the 767.

However, the 7E7 is far from a proven design. composite fulselage and
bleed air replaced with all electric systems. It may look promising, it
but itsn't proven yet.

We'll know in a few months if the 380 has delivered on promises or not.


> What I do question is the notion that this will somehow "transform" air
> travel.

I think the differences in the 380 have more to do with real comfort.
For instance, if they have a duty free shop, instead of trolleys, if
they have a snack bar instead of pax having to wait for FA to come to
their seat etc etc, this would change the way people experience air
travel. It would be more akin to train travel than to conventional air
travel. And in terms of premium classes, the added floor space will
allow the ailrines to give pax much more than on smaller planes.

> How so? At best it will reduce costs by say 25%, so instead of
> paying $500 for a ticket to Heathrow I might pay $375,

Look at what happened when Southwest and now Jetblue started to charge
less. Not only did people flock to them, but the legacy carriers have
been bleeding to death because they try to match the prices without
equivaoent reduction in operating costs.

[windsor]

I hope the airlines put in all 850 seats, all economy. Just to **** off
the snobs.

[Bob Noel]

In article >, "Morgans" >
wrote:

> > The chokepoints are the airports in the US. Freeflight isn't going to be
> much
> > help in the US.
> >
>
> That is one opinion. Others have just as much value.

All opinions have the same value? Would an opinion based on
incorrect data have the same value as one based on correct data?

>
> Point to point will let the "hoard" of VLJ's fit in to the small airports,
> which should relieve some of the pressure off the big airports.

why aren't they flying to small airports now? Do you think it's because
of the lack of freeflight in the US NAS?

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
"Clark W. Griswold, Jr." > wrote:

> The chokepoints are a handful (less than 12) high volume airports. Those
> airports are high volume primarily due to the hub connections through those
> airports. Eliminate or reduce the hub traffic and those airports are much
> less
> likely to be choke points.

But without more runways, there will only be so many aircraft that
can be launched and recovered...

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Lee Witten]

>> You're basically taking a proven design and
>> making it substantially cheaper to operate, which is always without
>> question a winning combination. All other things being equal I expect
>> both planes to succeed, but the 7E7 to be more profitable.
>
> The 380 is to the 747 what the 7E7 is to the 767.
>
> However, the 7E7 is far from a proven design. composite fulselage and
> bleed air replaced with all electric systems. It may look promising,
> it but itsn't proven yet.
>
> We'll know in a few months if the 380 has delivered on promises or
> not.

Proven or not, both have the chance to be 'disruptive technologies'.

Suppose the A380 is wildly popular. Its low cost per pax makes most
747s obsolete, and everywhere you now run a 747 an A380 is needed to
remain competitive. Boeing offers 747 Adv, but none are ordered and the
program is cancelled, killing the 747 cash cow once and for all. I
would imagine Boeing would have to do what Harry said, and make a big
plane too. That would be quite disruptive to Boeing.

Suppose the 7E7 is wildly popular. It's light weight, efficient
engines, 3 day assembly time and very low maintainence cost makes all
competing metal aircraft (A300/A310/A330/B757/B767) obsolete. Boeing's
new business model (just design and do final assembly, leave the rest to
partners) gives it the large profits needed to make composite
replacements to 737, 747 and 777. I imagine Airbus would have to redo
their entire product line too, and that will be very disruptive,
especially if their access to launch aid is curtailed.

I know I'm exaggerating and things never move that fast, but as you say,
we'll all know in time. I do believe one thing that Boeing is saying:
from now on, all future transports will be made of composites (the
advantages in weight, maintenance and fabrication expense are impossible
to ignore) and that will change a lot of things.

--lw--

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:16:42 GMT, "Colin W Kingsbury"
> wrote in
t>::

>The single biggest problem with free flight is that without extensive
>reliance on computers, it simply can't work.

Today the STARS system
<http://www.faa.gov/ats/atb/Sectors/Automation/STARS/> is currently
being deployed in the US. STARS provides updated computer technology
for approach and terminal phases of flight. ERAM
<http://www.faa.gov/aua/enroute/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.products&page=detail&prodID=1>
architecture replaces the current aging, and soon to be unsupportable,
en route system while providing all of today’s functionality and
adding the new capabilities needed to support the evolution of the
NAS. It will begin being deployed in 2006. So the FAA is addressing
the issue as we speak.

[Thomas Borchert]

Lee,

> Suppose the 7E7 is wildly popular. It's light weight, efficient
> engines, 3 day assembly time and very low maintainence cost makes all
> competing metal aircraft (A300/A310/A330/B757/B767) obsolete.
>

Don't forget the A350, Airbus's answer to the 7E7

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 07:39:04 -0500, Bob Noel
> wrote in
>::

>
>But without more runways, there will only be so many aircraft that
>can be launched and recovered...

Most runways in the US are vastly under used today thanks to the
airlines' reliance on hub-and-spoke architecture.

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

"Colin W Kingsbury" > wrote:

>Free Flight is not an incremental step--it's a complete change of doctrine
>and I don't trust making that kind of leap.

You are absolutely right. Certainly the concerns you identified are real. One of
the things I do is design avionics for large aircraft, so I'm in the middle of a
lot of the discussions on how to manage the transition, which has to be
evolutionary - not a huge leap.

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

AJC > wrote:

>The thing is 0.4-0.5% under weight. Here's just one current link:
>
>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aVTdVqaVmJoc&refer=europe

Interesting.... Wonder how it will be when they weigh the completed plane.

[Jeff Hacker]

"nobody" > wrote in message
...
> Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
>>> travel will grow. There are to the best of my knowledge no 747s
> operating in
>> domestic service in the US (except the occasional repositioning flight)
>
>
> It wasn't that long ago that United was advertising 747 service between
> JFK and LAX on TV.

Actually, it is a few years ago. For the past several years, they were
flying 767-200's mainly. Only a few months ago did they retire these birds
and replace them with their "p.s." configured 757-200's.
>
> Since then, the airline stopped competing on service, and competed on
> frequency. So that meant downsizing aircraft and putting more of them.
> And that has led the airlines to very inefficient schedules and costly
> fleets that have far more planes in them than necessary.

United's "p.s." stands for "premium service." They've upgraded the inflight
service in all three classes, and have a 34" pitch in economy - not just
Economy Plus. And they still serve food (for the time being, at least) in
cattle class.
>
> the 737 is also Southwest's achile's heel. Legacy carriers might come
> back with 747 or 38 to serve betwene large cities with fewer
> frequencies. The lower operating costs per passenger would allow them to
> undercut Southwest.

Not going to happen. The legacies remember the old days when one airline
would bracket another's jumbos with smaller jets and ended up eating their
lunches (Braniff did that to American with 727's vs. DC10's in the late
'70's). Business travelers want frequency.
>
> In other words, the minute the legacy carriers stop competing on
> frequency and number of cities served, you might find the return of the
> big planes in the USA between the large cities.
>
> And if Virgin can undercut the other carriers on USA-London flights,
> what will BA and AA and UA do ? Lose money on the runs by matching
> Virgin's fares ?

They'll have no choice. They can't aford to lose market share. Don't
forget that Virgin, for example, has limited feed beyond London; American
and United have tremendous feed beyond their U.S. point of entry. They need
to match frequency to have decent onward connections. That's why most AA
and UA flights between London and the U.S. are on either 767's or 777's
rather than 747's.
>
> They should know by now that you can't charge a premium for higher
> frequency. Passengers will flock to the low cost carrier to such an
> extent that the LCC will have to increase it frequencies to match demand.
>
>> Hub-and-spoke carriers are being bled to death by the point-to-point
>> LCCs,
>> who mostly operate 737-size planes.

But the 737 size plane has become the de-facto norm within the U.S. these
days (except for the MD80's AA, AS and DL fly).
>
> The whole "hub and spoke" thing is a sham. Southwest is probably just as
> hub-and-spoke as legacy carriers are. They just know how to operate a
> hub efficiently and they only serve profitable routes and only have the
> capacity that demand can fill.
>
> When you look at the TV programme "Airline", it seems clear to me that
> both LAX and Midway are operated as major WN hubs.

They really aren't true "hubs" as the percentage of "connecting" vs. "O&D"
passengers is less than elsewhere.
>
[snip]>
>
> I think the differences in the 380 have more to do with real comfort.
> For instance, if they have a duty free shop, instead of trolleys, if
> they have a snack bar instead of pax having to wait for FA to come to
> their seat etc etc, this would change the way people experience air
> travel. It would be more akin to train travel than to conventional air
> travel. And in terms of premium classes, the added floor space will
> allow the ailrines to give pax much more than on smaller planes.
>
>> How so? At best it will reduce costs by say 25%, so instead of
>> paying $500 for a ticket to Heathrow I might pay $375,
>
> Look at what happened when Southwest and now Jetblue started to charge
> less. Not only did people flock to them, but the legacy carriers have
> been bleeding to death because they try to match the prices without
> equivaoent reduction in operating costs.

[Matt Barrow]

"AJC" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:15:05 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
> >
> >http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=901
> >
> >"Tsunami-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it
> >must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs
against
> >its fishing industry.
> >
> >While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its
> >recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines,
> >its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker
aircraft."
>
>
> You'd be wise to do better than 'inform' yourself from an American
> 'Neolibertarian community portal' (their description, not mine!).

Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!


You'd be wise to learn to read since the point is the TIMING.

>The
> melodramatic start to your quote indicates the level they work on, and
> my how they twist reality.

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4054251.stm

"Thai Airways had been proceeding towards buying eight Airbus aircraft for
$2bn.
All seemed to be going smoothly until the country's Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra intervened to allege that discrimination by the European Union
against Thai imports of sea food and poultry was a problem.

Until the EU changed its way, he indicated, Thailand would be loathe to buy
aircraft from Airbus."

Take your EU fascist/statist crap and shove it up your ass.


Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

[G.R. Patterson III]

Morgans wrote:
>
> They will
> also not have to arrive at the "big push" times at the major airports.

Oh, they probably will. The "big push" times are caused by the fact that those
are the times business travelers prefer to arrive or depart.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

[Colin W Kingsbury]

"nobody" > wrote in message
...
> Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
>
> Since then, the airline stopped competing on service, and competed on
> frequency. So that meant downsizing aircraft and putting more of them.
> And that has led the airlines to very inefficient schedules and costly
> fleets that have far more planes in them than necessary.
>
> the 737 is also Southwest's achile's heel. Legacy carriers might come
> back with 747 or 38 to serve betwene large cities with fewer
> frequencies. The lower operating costs per passenger would allow them to
> undercut Southwest.

This is what Delta is trying to do with Song- using 757s which are about 25%
(?) bigger than the 737/A320-size a/c all the LCCs are running. This may
work well on NY-Fla. flights which are consistently packed, but there's a
reason that not a single domestic LCC is running anything that big. The key
to this is load factor: you're better off running out of seats in a small
plane, than having empty ones in a big one. In the past 4 years that I've
been flying commercial a lot out of Boston, I've gone from connecting to
hubs in a 757, to a A320, to a DC-9, and finally to an RJ. This is not a
coincidence.

> In other words, the minute the legacy carriers stop competing on
> frequency and number of cities served, you might find the return of the
> big planes in the USA between the large cities.

Except that in many cases the LCCs are now offering frequencies that beat
the majors. Airtran flies from BOS-ATL just as often as DL does and JetBlue
goes to OAK and LGB multiple times a day.

> And if Virgin can undercut the other carriers on USA-London flights,
> what will BA and AA and UA do ? Lose money on the runs by matching
> Virgin's fares ?

US carriers have done fine on trans-Atlantic traffic because Virgin can't
get you to any US airport that isn't touched by an ocean. Of course if
congress ever drops the ban on cabotage this could get interesting.

>
> The whole "hub and spoke" thing is a sham. Southwest is probably just as
> hub-and-spoke as legacy carriers are. They just know how to operate a
> hub efficiently and they only serve profitable routes and only have the
> capacity that demand can fill.
>

The basic principle of the hub system is that a passenger should be able to
get from city A to city B in the least amount of time and connections. By
feeding traffic into hubs on fixed schedules, you are able to accomplish
this. In fact, flying from A-B is not the point, it is flying A-B-C where
flying A-C would not in and of itself be profitable. Southwest optimizes
around A-B flights; being able to do A-B-C is simply coincidental. Even five
years ago it was often very difficult to get from A-C even where SWA served
both cities. You either had to take three planes or wait a long time for
connections. Increasingly as their traffic volume goes up, they are starting
to have a high enough frequency of flights to reduce this effect, but there
are still a whole lot of places they don't go that the legacy carriers do.

>
> Does Southwest ever sell A-B-C cheaper than it sells A-B ???? The legacy
> carriers often do that. And they probably lose lots of money just trying
> to match another airline.
>

I have connected through Minneapolis on my way across the country many times
on flights costing $400 roundtrip. OTOH, I have never managed to buy a
BOS-MSP flight for less than $800. Why? Because NWA owns MSP, they can
demand monopoly prices for direct flights. Of course flying BOS-MSP costs
less than BOS-MSP-SFO, but that's not the point. I can get from BOS-SFO in
any of several dozen ways. But if I want to go from BOS-MSP without
connecting in Atlanta or Chicago, I *have* to fly Northwest, and so they can
demand a higher price. This is the curse of living in a hub city- you get
direct flights to everywhere, but you pay a fortune for them.

> If B is a large city, than it is only normal to have A-B and C-B
> flights. It makes B a hub. But that doesn't force that airline to sell
> A-B-C ticket for a low price to matych a LCC that does A-C on a smaller
> aircraft that matches the actual demand between A and C.

Once the door closes, unsold seats become worthless. If you're already
flying the plane, you're better off filling them cheap than leaving them
empty.

>
> > But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
> > is larger and more sparsely populated, so similar patterns may or may
not
> > emerge. Growth in East/Southeast Asia alone may well make the A380 a
> > success.
>
> On the other hand, the window for trans-atlantic flights is fairly
> narrow and it becomes less economic to run multiple flights at about the
> same time of day compared to running one bigger plane.

Yes, but this depends too on total demand. Let's say that on a given day
there are 10 747s scheduled to fly between JFK and LHR, say 4000 pax. You
could switch one of these to an A380, thus raising capacity to say 4300, but
that doesn't mean that there will suddenly be 300 more people wanting to
take that flight. OK, so it's cheaper, so maybe you poach them off a
competitor. Now your competitor buys an A380 and matches your price. As
prices drop across the board, perhaps two hundred more people decide to buy
tickets, but you've now got 4600 seats to fill, and only 4200 passengers.
Let's say all 10 747s are replaced and we have 6500 seats to fill. What now?
Your only choice is to reduce frequency or start channeling more passengers
in from stations down the line. Maybe you stop flying from BOS-LHR and
funnel everybody through JFK. Well, guess what? The guy with the 7E7 can fly
from Philly and Boston to LHR just fine, which will stymie your attempts to
move more people through JFK. This is Boeing's bet, anyway, and as a heavy
traveler it makes sense to me.

>
> However, consider long haul flights of more than 8 hours. They require 2
> crews. Running 2 7E7s on a 14 hour flight instead of 1 380 requires
> double the number of pilots (8 instead of 4) and probably more FAs as
> well (but less than double).
>

Of course, it will always be more profitable to fill one big plane on a
route than two smaller ones, but there are plenty of international routes
that can easily fill a 767/777 but not enough volume for a 747/A380. The
jumbos only win if you can fill the seats.

>
> The 380 is to the 747 what the 7E7 is to the 767.
>

Wrong answer. The 7E7 has the same number of seats as the 767, in other
words, it's the same plane but cheaper to operate. You can drop it right
into your existing schedule/route structure without thinking about it.

The A380 is a much bigger plane than the 747. Unless the airlines expect
more passengers to show up magically they will have to make some changes. In
some cases (say FRA-SKG) where they have two 747s departing on the same
route within an hour tor two of each other, OK, this will be easy. I suspect
that's behind about 90% of the A380's demand right now. The question as I
asked was, what next?

> We'll know in a few months if the 380 has delivered on promises or not.

Performance figures are important but the market is determinative. It
doesn't matter if the plane performs exactly to spec if the passenger demand
isn't there.

>
> > What I do question is the notion that this will somehow "transform" air
> > travel.
>
> I think the differences in the 380 have more to do with real comfort.

Har har. Just wait 'til you've got 800 people in cattle class. Great for
ticket prices but hell for comfort.

> travel. And in terms of premium classes, the added floor space will
> allow the ailrines to give pax much more than on smaller planes.

Yes, but it won't get any cheaper.

> > How so? At best it will reduce costs by say 25%, so instead of
> > paying $500 for a ticket to Heathrow I might pay $375,
>
> Look at what happened when Southwest and now Jetblue started to charge
> less. Not only did people flock to them, but the legacy carriers have
> been bleeding to death because they try to match the prices without
> equivaoent reduction in operating costs.

[Jeff Hacker]

"Colin W Kingsbury" > wrote in message
ink.net...
>
> "nobody" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
>>
>> Since then, the airline stopped competing on service, and competed on
>> frequency. So that meant downsizing aircraft and putting more of them.
>> And that has led the airlines to very inefficient schedules and costly
>> fleets that have far more planes in them than necessary.
>>
>> the 737 is also Southwest's achile's heel. Legacy carriers might come
>> back with 747 or 38 to serve betwene large cities with fewer
>> frequencies. The lower operating costs per passenger would allow them to
>> undercut Southwest.
>
> This is what Delta is trying to do with Song- using 757s which are about
> 25%
> (?) bigger than the 737/A320-size a/c all the LCCs are running. This may
> work well on NY-Fla. flights which are consistently packed, but there's a
> reason that not a single domestic LCC is running anything that big. The
> key
> to this is load factor: you're better off running out of seats in a small
> plane, than having empty ones in a big one. In the past 4 years that I've
> been flying commercial a lot out of Boston, I've gone from connecting to
> hubs in a 757, to a A320, to a DC-9, and finally to an RJ. This is not a
> coincidence.
>
>> In other words, the minute the legacy carriers stop competing on
>> frequency and number of cities served, you might find the return of the
>> big planes in the USA between the large cities.
>
> Except that in many cases the LCCs are now offering frequencies that beat
> the majors. Airtran flies from BOS-ATL just as often as DL does and
> JetBlue
> goes to OAK and LGB multiple times a day.
>
>> And if Virgin can undercut the other carriers on USA-London flights,
>> what will BA and AA and UA do ? Lose money on the runs by matching
>> Virgin's fares ?
>
> US carriers have done fine on trans-Atlantic traffic because Virgin can't
> get you to any US airport that isn't touched by an ocean. Of course if
> congress ever drops the ban on cabotage this could get interesting.
>
>>
>> The whole "hub and spoke" thing is a sham. Southwest is probably just as
>> hub-and-spoke as legacy carriers are. They just know how to operate a
>> hub efficiently and they only serve profitable routes and only have the
>> capacity that demand can fill.
>>
>
> The basic principle of the hub system is that a passenger should be able
> to
> get from city A to city B in the least amount of time and connections. By
> feeding traffic into hubs on fixed schedules, you are able to accomplish
> this. In fact, flying from A-B is not the point, it is flying A-B-C where
> flying A-C would not in and of itself be profitable. Southwest optimizes
> around A-B flights; being able to do A-B-C is simply coincidental. Even
> five
> years ago it was often very difficult to get from A-C even where SWA
> served
> both cities. You either had to take three planes or wait a long time for
> connections. Increasingly as their traffic volume goes up, they are
> starting
> to have a high enough frequency of flights to reduce this effect, but
> there
> are still a whole lot of places they don't go that the legacy carriers do.
>
>>
>> Does Southwest ever sell A-B-C cheaper than it sells A-B ???? The legacy
>> carriers often do that. And they probably lose lots of money just trying
>> to match another airline.
>>
>
> I have connected through Minneapolis on my way across the country many
> times
> on flights costing $400 roundtrip. OTOH, I have never managed to buy a
> BOS-MSP flight for less than $800. Why? Because NWA owns MSP, they can
> demand monopoly prices for direct flights. Of course flying BOS-MSP costs
> less than BOS-MSP-SFO, but that's not the point. I can get from BOS-SFO in
> any of several dozen ways. But if I want to go from BOS-MSP without
> connecting in Atlanta or Chicago, I *have* to fly Northwest, and so they
> can
> demand a higher price. This is the curse of living in a hub city- you get
> direct flights to everywhere, but you pay a fortune for them.

You have other alternatives (AA through DFW, Frontier or United through
Denver, just to name two. And NW can't command a premium for MSP as a
hub -it isn't significantly preferable to any other hub.

>
>> If B is a large city, than it is only normal to have A-B and C-B
>> flights. It makes B a hub. But that doesn't force that airline to sell
>> A-B-C ticket for a low price to matych a LCC that does A-C on a smaller
>> aircraft that matches the actual demand between A and C.
>
> Once the door closes, unsold seats become worthless. If you're already
> flying the plane, you're better off filling them cheap than leaving them
> empty.
>
>>
>> > But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
>> > is larger and more sparsely populated, so similar patterns may or may
> not
>> > emerge. Growth in East/Southeast Asia alone may well make the A380 a
>> > success.
>>
>> On the other hand, the window for trans-atlantic flights is fairly
>> narrow and it becomes less economic to run multiple flights at about the
>> same time of day compared to running one bigger plane.
>
> Yes, but this depends too on total demand. Let's say that on a given day
> there are 10 747s scheduled to fly between JFK and LHR, say 4000 pax. You
> could switch one of these to an A380, thus raising capacity to say 4300,
> but
> that doesn't mean that there will suddenly be 300 more people wanting to
> take that flight. OK, so it's cheaper, so maybe you poach them off a
> competitor. Now your competitor buys an A380 and matches your price. As
> prices drop across the board, perhaps two hundred more people decide to
> buy
> tickets, but you've now got 4600 seats to fill, and only 4200 passengers.
> Let's say all 10 747s are replaced and we have 6500 seats to fill. What
> now?
> Your only choice is to reduce frequency or start channeling more
> passengers
> in from stations down the line. Maybe you stop flying from BOS-LHR and
> funnel everybody through JFK. Well, guess what? The guy with the 7E7 can
> fly
> from Philly and Boston to LHR just fine, which will stymie your attempts
> to
> move more people through JFK. This is Boeing's bet, anyway, and as a heavy
> traveler it makes sense to me.
>
>>
>> However, consider long haul flights of more than 8 hours. They require 2
>> crews. Running 2 7E7s on a 14 hour flight instead of 1 380 requires
>> double the number of pilots (8 instead of 4) and probably more FAs as
>> well (but less than double).
>>
>
> Of course, it will always be more profitable to fill one big plane on a
> route than two smaller ones, but there are plenty of international routes
> that can easily fill a 767/777 but not enough volume for a 747/A380. The
> jumbos only win if you can fill the seats.
>
>>
>> The 380 is to the 747 what the 7E7 is to the 767.
>>
>
> Wrong answer. The 7E7 has the same number of seats as the 767, in other
> words, it's the same plane but cheaper to operate. You can drop it right
> into your existing schedule/route structure without thinking about it.
>
> The A380 is a much bigger plane than the 747. Unless the airlines expect
> more passengers to show up magically they will have to make some changes.
> In
> some cases (say FRA-SKG) where they have two 747s departing on the same
> route within an hour tor two of each other, OK, this will be easy. I
> suspect
> that's behind about 90% of the A380's demand right now. The question as I
> asked was, what next?
>
>> We'll know in a few months if the 380 has delivered on promises or not.
>
> Performance figures are important but the market is determinative. It
> doesn't matter if the plane performs exactly to spec if the passenger
> demand
> isn't there.
>
>>
>> > What I do question is the notion that this will somehow "transform" air
>> > travel.
>>
>> I think the differences in the 380 have more to do with real comfort.
>
> Har har. Just wait 'til you've got 800 people in cattle class. Great for
> ticket prices but hell for comfort.
>
>> travel. And in terms of premium classes, the added floor space will
>> allow the ailrines to give pax much more than on smaller planes.
>
> Yes, but it won't get any cheaper.
>
>> > How so? At best it will reduce costs by say 25%, so instead of
>> > paying $500 for a ticket to Heathrow I might pay $375,
>>
>> Look at what happened when Southwest and now Jetblue started to charge
>> less. Not only did people flock to them, but the legacy carriers have
>> been bleeding to death because they try to match the prices without
>> equivaoent reduction in operating costs.

They have no choice but to match price to maintain market share. And don't
forget the legacies serve places the LCC's wouldn't consider serving.

>
>
>

[nobody]

Lee Witten wrote:
> Proven or not, both have the chance to be 'disruptive technologies'.
>
> Suppose the A380 is wildly popular. Its low cost per pax makes most
> 747s obsolete, and everywhere you now run a 747 an A380 is needed to
> remain competitive.

A large part of a plane's success is how the airline sets up the
interior. For long hauls, entertainment, food, and with the 380, if
there is anything to do while standing up. (Rememberring that airlines
strongly discourage passengers to stand up for long and to have seat
belts on at all times when seated in case of turbulence).

Where Virgin will kill BA is with the premium class. BA won't be able to
match what Virgin will provide in first and business class because BA's
planes just don't have the space. So airlines that traditionally rely on
premium passengers and who have not purchased the 380 are at risk.

So that will definitely be a disruptive change.

The 747 seems quite popular as a freighter. But it may go the way of the
MD11, except that there may not be a FedEx to adopt every stray 747 it
can find.

I think that the real danger for the 747 comes not from the 380, but
from the Antonov 124. They have recently decided to restart the
production line of the 124s. (Antonov is in Ukraine, but got lost of
funds from Russia, that puts the recent elections in perspective, same
applies to the company in Ukrtaine that builds the Kurs automated
docking system for Russian spacecraft).

If the 380 takes the pax business and the small package business from
the 747, what is left is large bulk cargo, and that is where the 124
beats the 747.

> would imagine Boeing would have to do what Harry said, and make a big
> plane too. That would be quite disruptive to Boeing.

Unless the current rift/raft between EU and USA results in allowing
Boeing to get lots of help, it will not be able to justify developping a
380 competitor. The market just isn't big enough to get Wall Street to
give Boeing 15 billion bucks to sell 250-300 planes.

Once the beast is flying commercially with known performance metrics,
then we will be able to compare how the 747 fares against the 380 in
terms of orders for passenger versions. Until now, the airlines have
just simply postponed large plane decisions, awaiting to see what both
Boeing and Airbus would do.

This period is about to end, and we've already seen the thai, UPS and
now the chinese orders coming in, since the confidence level of the 380
actually delivering on prmises is rising.

United and Northwest will be the real test for Boeing. Will they get rid
of the 747 alltogether and replace it with 777s, will they order new
747s once they are back in business, or will they order the 380 because
it is (allegedly) better than the 747 ? Right now, they are in no shape
to order anything and United has reduced its 747 fleet.

> Suppose the 7E7 is wildly popular. It's light weight, efficient
> engines, 3 day assembly time and very low maintainence cost makes all
> competing metal aircraft (A300/A310/A330/B757/B767) obsolete.

I heard Boeing state that the all-composite fuselage wasn't lighter than
what they could have done with modern aluminium stuff. Will it be
lighter per pax than the 767, you bet. Will it be lighter per pax than
the 77, most likely. Will it be lighter than the A350 ? Probably not
much lighter, if any.

Remember that Airbus also gained much experience with both aluminium and
composites on the 380, and in some ways are a step ahead of Boeing. The
top part of the A380 fuselage is made from a aluminium/composite
laminate for instance. Airbus uses cold welding technique to fuse
aluminium parts instead of using rivets. And has experience with all
composite structures such as the A380s tail fin and elevators (which are
as big as 737's wings).

So *IF* they add that experience to the 350, they may be able to produce
something that is quite comeptitive with the 7E7. Where the difference
may lie is in the bleed air issue.

> new business model (just design and do final assembly, leave the rest to
> partners) gives it the large profits needed to make composite
> replacements to 737, 747 and 777.

Nop. Because the same "partnering" practice also spreads the profits
around. You can bet that the japanese cgovernment which is footing the
bill for a large portion of the 7E7 will want its subsidies back.


> I imagine Airbus would have to redo
> their entire product line too, and that will be very disruptive,
> especially if their access to launch aid is curtailed.


The biggest disruptive technilogy I see is the bleed air issue. If this
proves to be a big winner (not sure of that), then both Boeing and
Airbus will be under pressure to redo their product lines to incorporate
this. And if such a change requires a totally new type certificate, this
will be extremely disruptive to both Boeing and Airbus.

However, consider Airbus' situation:

Its 340 is essentially dead.
The 330 is getting its makeover into the 350.
The A380 is brand spanking new.

So what is left now is the 320 line which, while younger than the 737 in
many ways, is also starting to mature. If Boeing decides to redo the 737
from scratch, and Airbus decides to do a 320-NG, Airbus would be doing
the same mistake as Boeing did in the 1990s by keeping the 737.

In fairness though, the difference in expertise/knowledge of
aerodynamics and engines between the late 1980 and now is less than
between the late 1980s and the 1960s when the 737 was conceived. So the
320 would see less of an improvement in a total rebuild than the 737 would.

> we'll all know in time. I do believe one thing that Boeing is saying:
> from now on, all future transports will be made of composites (the
> advantages in weight, maintenance and fabrication expense are impossible
> to ignore) and that will change a lot of things.

Are composites really cheaper to make ?

In terms of maintenance, I am not so sure that composites have proven
themselves. After the Queens crash, the NTSB realised that there was no
real expertise in diagnosing composites and they had to go to NASA to
get various tail assemblies studied to see if there was some widespread
composite problems in tails or not etc etc. Airlines didn't really have
the tools to do that.

The 7E7 will force the development of totally new maintenance procedure
for aircraft structures.

Also, the lack of bleed air and introduction of new systems to replace
it will also require new training and maintenance procedures. Only time
will tell if those prove to be more relaibale than current systems.

[Roger]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:26:39 -0500, "H Pinder" >
wrote:

>It would be normal corporate behaviour to calculate the "liters per
>passenger per 100 Km" using the most optimistic factors. Such as maximum
>number of seats, every seat filled, best city pair, no delays of any type,
>etc. etc.
>The reality will be interesting to see.
>Harvey
>"alexy" > wrote in message
...
>> nobody > wrote:
>>
>> >Interesting tidbit from Bob Bliar:
>> >
>> >The A380 consumes only 3 litres of fuel per pax per 100km, equivalent to
>> >a fuel efficient diesel car.

But what is the operating cost per 100 km?

>>
>> Interesting stat, but the followup discussion here points out a
>> question on exactly what this stat is. Is it fuel burn per passenger
>> mile at max passenger load (i.e., the 380 carries 110 times as many
>> passengers as the 5-passenger car, but burns less than 110 times as
>> much fuel per mile) or fuel burn per passenger mile at typical
>> passenger loads (i.e., the 380 at a typical passenger load of, e.g.,
>> 450 carries 300 times as many passengers as the car at a typical load
>> of 1.5 people, but burns less than 300 times as much fuel per mile.

But in the car that fuel is only a few cents per mile. On average it's
probably only about 3 to 5% of the operating cost of cars that are
kept 4 years or less. The first three years my TA cost near 57 cents
a mile while the gas at today's prices would be about 10 to 11 cents
per mile. Back then it was about 8 cents a mile. Even at the
inflated gas prices the cost of a car would probably still put gas in
the 5 to 10% range.

>>
>> Obviously, such a statistic based on capacity is far more significant
>> than one based on average use. 3 liters/passenger per 100KM? I suspect

Still, the bottom like on something that size will depend not on the
ultimate, but the average. At the end of the year the bean counters
are interested in how much it cost them per passenger mile and the
cost of the fule may, or may not become significant. (it probably
will)

>> there are MANY 5-passenger cars that will go further than 100KM on 15
>> liters of fuel, but not may that will go 100KM on 4.5 liters of fuel,
>> if 1.5 is the average load of the car.

The 380 will probably be the least expensive long haul plane flying,
IF they can use the majority of the seats.

A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
hours.

The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
probably did quite well.

And my wife's old mini-mini van used to get 38 mpg. Now that it has
near 200,000 miles 262,000 km it doesn't do quite so well. It
probably takes the extra gas to pump out all that oil.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
>>
>>
>> --
>> Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked
>infrequently.
>

[Colin W Kingsbury]

"Jeff Hacker" > wrote in message
om...
>
> "Colin W Kingsbury" > wrote in message
> ink.net...
> >
> > I have connected through Minneapolis on my way across the country many
> > times
<snip>
> > demand a higher price. This is the curse of living in a hub city- you
get
> > direct flights to everywhere, but you pay a fortune for them.
>
> You have other alternatives (AA through DFW, Frontier or United through
> Denver, just to name two. And NW can't command a premium for MSP as a
> hub -it isn't significantly preferable to any other hub.

Of course if you're willing to connect you have choices, but if you want to
go direct to or from a hub, in many cases your only choice is the hub's
owner. Thus they are able to command monopoly, i.e. highly-inflated ticket
prices on that route. This explains why A-B-C tickets are almost invariably
*cheaper* than A-B tickets: it's not that they're giving the A-B-C tickets
away, it's that they're raping fliers going from A-B. In fact, if you book a
roundtrip flight from A-B-C and get off at B (what is known as "hidden city
ticketing") there's a very good chance the airline will cancel the rest of
your itinerary for violating the conditions of carriage, especially if you
do it more than once.

In fact, the monopoly power (or lack thereof) that certain carriers have
over hubs is probably the main reason they are still surviving. It's
probably the only place in their operations that consistently makes money.

-cwk.

[Morgans]

"Jeff Hacker" > wrote two more lines and added them to a
10K post, without snipping the length, at all.

Shame on you! Don't be lazy!
--
Jim in NC

[Nik]

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>
>
> You'd be wise to learn to read since the point is the TIMING.
>

You didn't notice the date on the article provided by AJC? I also gave you
an article with an important date on?

Perhaps you do not know when the Tsunami stroke?


>>The
>> melodramatic start to your quote indicates the level they work on, and
>> my how they twist reality.
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4054251.stm
>
> "Thai Airways had been proceeding towards buying eight Airbus aircraft for
> $2bn.
> All seemed to be going smoothly until the country's Prime Minister Thaksin
> Shinawatra intervened to allege that discrimination by the European Union
> against Thai imports of sea food and poultry was a problem.
>
> Until the EU changed its way, he indicated, Thailand would be loathe to
> buy
> aircraft from Airbus."
>
> Take your EU fascist/statist crap and shove it up your ass.
>
>

How come that communists and ultra-conservatives have the same common
problem of recognising the difference between reality and their own
ideologically created illusions?

Nik

[Dave]

>
> A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
> could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
> came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
> in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
> hours.
>
> The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
> probably did quite well.
>

No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
they put in then on these routes.
The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process the
passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties carried
out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now available, it is
entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc. One immigration
officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing for the non
straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.


This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there is
often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago the
United flight was half full

[nobody]

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:

> In fact, the monopoly power (or lack thereof) that certain carriers have
> over hubs is probably the main reason they are still surviving. It's
> probably the only place in their operations that consistently makes money.

Au contraire. It is exactly because the legay carriers have been able to
and have milked customers in areas of non competition (their hubs) that
they not only developped high costs, but also left the door wide open
for the first low cost carrier to enter that city and really hurt the airline.

The legacy carriers abused yield management for short term gains back
then, but they are now paying the big bucks for it.

Had the legacy carrier not milked customers (in particular business
customers) just because they could, they would have had much greater
incentive to lower their costs so that they could be more profitable
carrying more passengers with a lwer yield, instead of relying on fewer
pax paying exhorbitant fees.

[David CL Francis]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 at 22:19:48 in message
>, Stefan > wrote:
>Actually, no. There are diesel cars which burn 3 litres of diesel on
>100 kilometers for the *entire car*. Which means 3 litres for 4
>passengers, or even 5 if you accept to be stuffed like in an airplane.

That's excellent 78 mpg (US)
--
David CL Francis

[Nik]

"Dave" > wrote in message
...
>
>>
>> A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
>> could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
>> came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
>> in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
>> hours.
>>
>> The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
>> probably did quite well.
>>
>
> No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
> leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
> flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
> has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
> they put in then on these routes.
> The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process
> the passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties
> carried out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now
> available, it is entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc.
> One immigration officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing
> for the non straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
> Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.
>
>
> This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there
> is often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago
> the United flight was half full
>

In those 11 years I have lived in Hong Kong I have only experienced once a
plane being only about half full.

Nik

[Chanchao]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:26:39 -0500, "H Pinder" > wrote
some stuff about "380 fuel usage", to which I would like to add the following:

>It would be normal corporate behaviour to calculate the "liters per
>passenger per 100 Km" using the most optimistic factors. Such as maximum
>number of seats, every seat filled, best city pair, no delays of any type,
>etc. etc.

So how is that different from car companies releasing fuel efficiency numbers?

Or you think they do those measurements in a big traffic jam with the aircon
running full blast? :-)

Cheers,
Chanchao

[Thomas Borchert]

Matt,

> Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>

From the what??? ROFL!

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[AJC]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:17:11 -0000, "Dave" >
wrote:

>
>>
>> A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
>> could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
>> came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
>> in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
>> hours.
>>
>> The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
>> probably did quite well.
>>
>
>No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
>leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
>flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
>has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
>they put in then on these routes.
>The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process the
>passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties carried
>out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now available, it is
>entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc. One immigration
>officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing for the non
>straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
>Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.
>
>
>This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there is
>often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago the
>United flight was half full
>

This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.
--==++AJC++==--

[AJC]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:39:55 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
> wrote:

>
>"AJC" > wrote in message
...
>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:15:05 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
>> >
>> >http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=901
>> >
>> >"Tsunami-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it
>> >must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs
>against
>> >its fishing industry.
>> >
>> >While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its
>> >recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines,
>> >its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker
>aircraft."
>>
>>
>> You'd be wise to do better than 'inform' yourself from an American
>> 'Neolibertarian community portal' (their description, not mine!).
>
>Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>
>

Wonderful. That old trick. Anyone who has another opinion, does things
in a different way, disagrees with you, just call them a fascist. Did
you learn that from your comrades at your local neolibertarian
community portal? Clearly they've given you the basic training, but
you really need something a little more sophisticated than that before
you should be let loose.



>You'd be wise to learn to read since the point is the TIMING.
>

Ah yes, the timing. The trade dispute between the EU and Thailand has
been going on for quite some time now, but you didn't see fit to
mention it earlier. The Thai government's attempts to link the dispute
with their national airline's order for some aircraft started some
time ago, but you didn't see fit to mention it then. No, you
opportunistically picked your moment after the natural disaster in
Asia on 26 December, simply so that you could embellish your factually
incorrect propaganda with the starting phrase: 'Tsunami-struck
Thailand'.

Why are you so supportive of the Thai government's interventionist
policies anyway? The last thing Thai Airways needs right now is
government interfering in its operations. It needs to be left to make
commercial decisions to compete in its markets, yet you are supporting
the government's outrageous attempts to bribe it's way through a trade
dispute at the risk of damaging Thai Airways. Is this government
interventiionist policy one that you adhere to generally? Is it
something you learned at your neolibertarian community portal? Maybe
you need to go and get a ruling from the neolibertarian politburo on
that.

Out of interest, as you are such a concerned citizen when it comes to
supporting the Thai shrimping industry, would you like to tell us some
of the active measures you have taken to fight the 97% tariffs imposed
by the US?

Oh, and why are you so supportive of the shrimping industry in Asia?
An industry that is surrounded in controversy with criticism of it's
abuse of people and the environment. As you took so much trouble to
bring this matter to our attention, you must surely be aware of the
forced removal of people from their land by the shrimping companies,
and the destruction of ecologically important mangrove swamps. Of
course you will also be aware that human rights and environmental
groups are actively fighting these abuses, but I suppose you would
just consider them fascists to.



>>The
>> melodramatic start to your quote indicates the level they work on, and
>> my how they twist reality.
>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4054251.stm
>
>"Thai Airways had been proceeding towards buying eight Airbus aircraft for
>$2bn.
>All seemed to be going smoothly until the country's Prime Minister Thaksin
>Shinawatra intervened to allege that discrimination by the European Union
>against Thai imports of sea food and poultry was a problem.
>
>Until the EU changed its way, he indicated, Thailand would be loathe to buy
>aircraft from Airbus."
>
>Take your EU fascist/statist crap and shove it up your ass.
>
>

Ah, personal abuse. A sure sign of someone floundering. I know it's
difficult. You found a piece of factually incorrect, but melodramatic
propaganda on one of your favourite neolibertarian community portals.
You pasted it here, hoping a few people who don't know any better
would believe it, and that would be the end of it. Thing is you really
need to have some back up, something with a little more depth than
just calling everyone a fascist.




>Matt
>---------------------
>Matthew W. Barrow
>Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
>Montrose, CO
>
>
>
>

--==++AJC++==--

[Matt Barrow]

"AJC" > wrote in message
...

> >>
> >> You'd be wise to do better than 'inform' yourself from an American
> >> 'Neolibertarian community portal' (their description, not mine!).
> >
> >Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
> >
> >
>
> Wonderful. That old trick.

Yes, like your remarks about neolibertarian....

> Anyone who has another opinion, does things
> in a different way, disagrees with you, just call them a fascist.

Ah, no....people/nations that demonstrate textbook examples of fascist
economic and political systems are called "fascist".

Thanks for playing Sparky.

[plonk]

[Frank F. Matthews]

AJC wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:17:11 -0000, "Dave" >
> wrote:
>
>
>>>A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
>>>could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
>>>came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
>>>in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
>>>hours.
>>>
>>>The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
>>>probably did quite well.
>>>
>>
>>No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
>>leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
>>flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
>>has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
>>they put in then on these routes.
>>The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process the
>>passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties carried
>>out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now available, it is
>>entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc. One immigration
>>officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing for the non
>>straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
>>Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.
>>
>>
>>This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there is
>>often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago the
>>United flight was half full
>>
>
>
> This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
> 380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
> financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
> lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
> Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
> there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.
> --==++AJC++==--


Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.

[Dave]

"Frank F. Matthews" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> AJC wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:17:11 -0000, "Dave" >
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
>>>>could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
>>>>came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
>>>>in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
>>>>hours.
>>>>
>>>>The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
>>>>probably did quite well.
>>>>
>>>
>>>No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
>>>leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
>>>flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
>>>has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
>>>they put in then on these routes.
>>>The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process
>>>the passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties
>>>carried out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now
>>>available, it is entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc.
>>>One immigration officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing
>>>for the non straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
>>>Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.
>>>
>>>
>>>This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there
>>>is often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago
>>>the United flight was half full
>>
>>
>> This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
>> 380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
>> financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
>> lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
>> Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
>> there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.
>> --==++AJC++==--
>
>
> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the US
> for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and not a
> lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited routes
> so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.

a good reason 380 will not be seen much in the US but on the Europe/ Asia /
Aus NZ run they will be in big demand. You can see it in the list of initial
customers. It is a pretty narrow channel but it is fearsomely busy and the
380 will do well.

Given than many people in the US never travel outside the country, it is
possible they don't understand that. Only about 10% of Americans have
passports. In the US its smaller planes to little places, its a different
market entirely. After all by the time you get to somewhere like Rapid City
from say London the planes have got progressive smaller and smaller. If the
journey has not eroded your will to live then the destination will.

Whereas flying down the Europe Australia channel, there is only an small
amount of transferring to be done to or from the main hubs and even then you
may be in bigger planes.

[nobody]

"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
> US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
> not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
> routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.

You don't get it. There are markets where demand is high. High enough
that the USA airlines, instead of getting bigger planes, put multiple
flights one after the other because they philosophically refuse to fly a
big plane. Trans-atlantic flights don't need much frequency becayse the
window is not that big. In the evening, you can run on big flight and it
won't affect passenger's schedules, especially if it means you get the
prefered landing slot at LHR to allow the right connections.

Southwest's "one plane fits all", has already been broken since WN has
737s of different sizes.

Secondly, it is also its achile's heel. Right now, ON AVERAGE,
Southwest's policy works out with costs that are lower than the legacy
carriers. Not so much because the 737 is a better plane for its whole
network, but simply because Southwest is better runned, better managed,
and has better staff. (costs less, does more).

However, if you were to clone Southwest, and then make changes to that
clone so that it would sharply focus its fleet to have the most
efficient aircraft for a specific route and be able to manage that fleet
properly, the cloned Southwest would be able to have lower costs on many
routes compared to the original Southwest, and more importantly, would
be able to serve markets that the current Southwest can't serve.

So, take AA for instance on its JFK-LHR route. Because it operates a
large number of flights, its average crew/pax ratio is higher than
airlines that operate fewer flights with bigger planes. So AA's costs
have to be higher on that route.

Similarly, because AA lacks 747s, it can't really serve asia well, nor
the south pacific, and must rely on its Oneword partners.

Consider the case of Virgin. It started off with a few aircraft that
were extremely well focused on the routes it wanted to fly and it was
succesful and grew from there.

AA is too big and wants to apply one-plane-fits-all for its intl flights
to simplify its fleet. But that means that individual flighst are not
operated at best possible efficiency, especially on routes where you
have someone like Virgin that does operate at best efficiency for that route.


Yes, there are compelling arguments to reduce aircraft types in a fleet.
But when your 777s used domestically are different from those on
atlantic and different from those used in pacific, does that really give
you much in terms of fleet flexibility ? The minute you change seat
assignments due to aircraft change, you get the same headaches.

On long hauls though, there is a compelling argument in favour of using
1 plane type on a route. Why ? So that at your remote base, any pilot
currently staying there is able to take the next flight back should one
crew be incapacitated etc.


Having fewer plane types may simplify fleet management and maintenance.
But it also means that your network does not operate at its most
efficient level because you're not using the best aircraft for your
routes, you're using an aircraft that is average for your average route.

What happens when for each route you operate, there is a smaller airline
that operates a far more efficient aircraft for that route ? Then none
of your flighst are competitive, even though on paper, your fleet is
well managed.

[nobody]

Dave wrote:
> Given than many people in the US never travel outside the country, it is
> possible they don't understand that. Only about 10% of Americans have
> passports. In the US its smaller planes to little places, its a different
> market entirely.


It would be interesting to find out what percentage of US intl traffic
originates from very large cities like New York, Chicago, LAX, from the
mediaum cities like Boston, San Francisco, Houston/Dallas, and from
out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere cities like Otumwah Iowa.

My guess is that people who live in New York have no problems seing the
380 as filling a need, the people in medium cities don't see a need for
the 380, and the people out in the boon dock probably do see the need
since they are forced to connect through a large city anyways.

[Dan Luke]

"Thomas Borchert" wrote:
>> Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>>
>
> From the what??? ROFL!

According to the current right-wing doublespeak in the U. S., Hitler was
a socialist because his party was called the National Socialist Party,
Hitler was a fascist, Europe is socialist, therefore Europe is fascist.

How's that for logic?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[Frank F. Matthews]

nobody wrote:

> Dave wrote:
>
>>Given than many people in the US never travel outside the country, it is
>>possible they don't understand that. Only about 10% of Americans have
>>passports. In the US its smaller planes to little places, its a different
>>market entirely.
>
>
>
> It would be interesting to find out what percentage of US intl traffic
> originates from very large cities like New York, Chicago, LAX, from the
> mediaum cities like Boston, San Francisco, Houston/Dallas, and from
> out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere cities like Otumwah Iowa.
>
> My guess is that people who live in New York have no problems seing the
> 380 as filling a need, the people in medium cities don't see a need for
> the 380, and the people out in the boon dock probably do see the need
> since they are forced to connect through a large city anyways.



Cities like New York/Boston, LA/San Francisco, and Houston/Dallas are
more likely to support increased frequency than larger size if it can be
done economically.

[Frank F. Matthews]

nobody wrote:

> "Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
>
>>Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>>US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>>not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
>>routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>
>
> You don't get it. There are markets where demand is high. High enough
> that the USA airlines, instead of getting bigger planes, put multiple
> flights one after the other because they philosophically refuse to fly a
> big plane. Trans-atlantic flights don't need much frequency becayse the
> window is not that big. In the evening, you can run on big flight and it
> won't affect passenger's schedules, especially if it means you get the
> prefered landing slot at LHR to allow the right connections.
>
> Southwest's "one plane fits all", has already been broken since WN has
> 737s of different sizes.
>
> Secondly, it is also its achile's heel. Right now, ON AVERAGE,
> Southwest's policy works out with costs that are lower than the legacy
> carriers. Not so much because the 737 is a better plane for its whole
> network, but simply because Southwest is better runned, better managed,
> and has better staff. (costs less, does more).


The 737s are a better size for Southwest. They fit the model of rapid
turn around and quick boarding. A significantly larger plane would blow
the business model.


> However, if you were to clone Southwest, and then make changes to that
> clone so that it would sharply focus its fleet to have the most
> efficient aircraft for a specific route and be able to manage that fleet
> properly, the cloned Southwest would be able to have lower costs on many
> routes compared to the original Southwest, and more importantly, would
> be able to serve markets that the current Southwest can't serve.
>
> So, take AA for instance on its JFK-LHR route. Because it operates a
> large number of flights, its average crew/pax ratio is higher than
> airlines that operate fewer flights with bigger planes. So AA's costs
> have to be higher on that route.
>
> Similarly, because AA lacks 747s, it can't really serve asia well, nor
> the south pacific, and must rely on its Oneword partners.
>
> Consider the case of Virgin. It started off with a few aircraft that
> were extremely well focused on the routes it wanted to fly and it was
> succesful and grew from there.
>
> AA is too big and wants to apply one-plane-fits-all for its intl flights
> to simplify its fleet. But that means that individual flighst are not
> operated at best possible efficiency, especially on routes where you
> have someone like Virgin that does operate at best efficiency for that route.
>
>
> Yes, there are compelling arguments to reduce aircraft types in a fleet.
> But when your 777s used domestically are different from those on
> atlantic and different from those used in pacific, does that really give
> you much in terms of fleet flexibility ? The minute you change seat
> assignments due to aircraft change, you get the same headaches.
>
> On long hauls though, there is a compelling argument in favour of using
> 1 plane type on a route. Why ? So that at your remote base, any pilot
> currently staying there is able to take the next flight back should one
> crew be incapacitated etc.
>
>
> Having fewer plane types may simplify fleet management and maintenance.
> But it also means that your network does not operate at its most
> efficient level because you're not using the best aircraft for your
> routes, you're using an aircraft that is average for your average route.
>
> What happens when for each route you operate, there is a smaller airline
> that operates a far more efficient aircraft for that route ? Then none
> of your flighst are competitive, even though on paper, your fleet is
> well managed.

[Clark W. Griswold, Jr.]

"Frank F. Matthews" > wrote:

>Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>not a lack of passengers.

Load factors are at an all time high in the US as any frequent traveler can tell
you. Its yields that are down.

Translated: that means lots of people are flying, but not enough people are
buying those $800-$1000 last minute unrestricted tickets.

That's why NWA squawked so much when Delta dropped their max domestic fare to
$499.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
rk > wrote:

>
> Or even hourly charges for labor for time wasted sitting around an airport.
> That adds up rather quickly.


how many business travelers are hourly employees?

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Service Tech]

"Bob Noel" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> rk > wrote:
>
> >
> > Or even hourly charges for labor for time wasted sitting around an
airport.
> > That adds up rather quickly.
>
>
> how many business travelers are hourly employees?
>
I'm hourly and I don't mind the delays at all. (Except when I'm going home.)

[S Viemeister]

Bob Noel wrote:
>
> In article >,
> rk > wrote:
>
> >
> > Or even hourly charges for labor for time wasted sitting around an airport.
> > That adds up rather quickly.
>
> how many business travelers are hourly employees?
>
Consultants often bill by the hour.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
S Viemeister > wrote:

> > > Or even hourly charges for labor for time wasted sitting around an
> > > airport. That adds up rather quickly.
> >
> > how many business travelers are hourly employees?
> >
> Consultants often bill by the hour.

sure. but that doesn't answer the question.

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Vo Gon]

"Dave" > wrote in message
...

> Only about 10% of Americans have passports.

Try doubling that and you'll be accurate.

[Vo Gon]

"nobody" > wrote in message
...
> "Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
>> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>> US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>> not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
>> routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>
> You don't get it.

How the hell do you know? Do you work in the airline industry? Nope. Do you
work for an aircraft manufacturer? Nope. Do you work for an aerospace trade
journal? Nope. You're a VAX (!!) programmer. Don't pretend to be an
authority on the airline business when you are clearly not.

[ShawnD2112]

He may not be an expert or in the industry, but I am, and his arguments are
pretty much spot on (with the odd caveat thrown in here and there)

Shawn

"Vo Gon" > wrote in message
...
> "nobody" > wrote in message
> ...
>> "Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
>>> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>>> US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>>> not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
>>> routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>>
>> You don't get it.
>
> How the hell do you know? Do you work in the airline industry? Nope. Do
> you work for an aircraft manufacturer? Nope. Do you work for an aerospace
> trade journal? Nope. You're a VAX (!!) programmer. Don't pretend to be an
> authority on the airline business when you are clearly not.
>

[Thomas Borchert]

Dan,

> How's that for logic?
>

Great thinking, could be coming straight from the Ministry of Truth and
Love.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[AJC]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:17:41 GMT, "Frank F. Matthews"
> wrote:

>
>
>AJC wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:17:11 -0000, "Dave" >
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
>>>>could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
>>>>came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
>>>>in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
>>>>hours.
>>>>
>>>>The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
>>>>probably did quite well.
>>>>
>>>
>>>No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
>>>leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
>>>flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
>>>has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
>>>they put in then on these routes.
>>>The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process the
>>>passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties carried
>>>out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now available, it is
>>>entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc. One immigration
>>>officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing for the non
>>>straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
>>>Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.
>>>
>>>
>>>This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there is
>>>often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago the
>>>United flight was half full
>>>
>>
>>
>> This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
>> 380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
>> financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
>> lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
>> Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
>> there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.
>> --==++AJC++==--
>
>
>Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>US for the past several years.

Well I don't see dozens and dozens of US carriers' 747s lined up. Do
you?


>not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited
>routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>
In the US, yes. In Europe and Asia, certainly not.

--==++AJC++==--

[Nik]

"AJC" > wrote in message
...

> Well I don't see dozens and dozens of US carriers' 747s lined up. Do
> you?

Wonder how a bussines model according to which you run one 747 from the
dessert somewhere from let's say New York to LA once or twice daily the no
frill way (perhaps with a bussines class with a little bit more space and
one dry sandwich) at rock bottom price (ie with a margin similar to what
Ryan Air does) would work out? Wonder what that would do to the market?
Would you - provided you could fill the plane - be able to beat LCC's
carriers that are using 737's on price?

Nik

[Vo Gon]

"ShawnD2112" > wrote in message
k...
> He may not be an expert or in the industry, but I am, and his arguments
> are pretty much spot on (with the odd caveat thrown in here and there)

Great! Your opinions have some credibility then.

> "Vo Gon" > wrote in message
> ...
>> "nobody" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> "Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
>>>> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>>>> US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>>>> not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly
>>>> limited
>>>> routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>>>
>>> You don't get it.
>>
>> How the hell do you know? Do you work in the airline industry? Nope. Do
>> you work for an aircraft manufacturer? Nope. Do you work for an aerospace
>> trade journal? Nope. You're a VAX (!!) programmer. Don't pretend to be an
>> authority on the airline business when you are clearly not.
>>
>
>

[AJC]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 21:25:17 +0800, "Nik"
> wrote:

>
>"AJC" > wrote in message
...
>
>> Well I don't see dozens and dozens of US carriers' 747s lined up. Do
>> you?
>
>Wonder how a bussines model according to which you run one 747 from the
>dessert somewhere from let's say New York to LA once or twice daily the no
>frill way (perhaps with a bussines class with a little bit more space and
>one dry sandwich) at rock bottom price (ie with a margin similar to what
>Ryan Air does) would work out? Wonder what that would do to the market?
>Would you - provided you could fill the plane - be able to beat LCC's
>carriers that are using 737's on price?
>
>Nik
>

You would think it would work on transcontinental flights in the US.
747s operating just one or two frequencies per day between East and
West coast city pairs at rock bottom prices.
--==++AJC++==--

[Nik]

"AJC" > wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 21:25:17 +0800, "Nik"
>
> You would think it would work on transcontinental flights in the US.
> 747s operating just one or two frequencies per day between East and
> West coast city pairs at rock bottom prices.
> --==++AJC++==--

It would depend on there being a constant flow of people who would want to
go from the East to the Vest (and the other way) for whom prize is what
matters most. Who could they be?

Nik

[John R. Levine]

>Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the
>US for the past several years.

I don't know where you've been, but it's been quite a while since I've
been on a domestic flight on anything bigger than a 737 or A320. Last
week I flew ITH-PHL-ATL and back on US, and all four legs were on RJs.
Rather full RJs, but I'd think that PHL-ATL could support bigger
planes.

My working assumption is that the crew costs on RJs are so much lower
that they're willing to lose the revenue they might have gotten from
selling more seats on a bigger plane.

[John R. Levine]

>You would think it would work on transcontinental flights in the US.
>747s operating just one or two frequencies per day between East and
>West coast city pairs at rock bottom prices.

World Airways used to do that JFK-LAX. Didn't last.

If you look at the number of flights on that route, on planes ranging
from 737s and 319s to 767s, at this point you'd have to expect that
everyone else would match your fares and keep you from filling up your
plane, even if they were selling below cost. It's the airline
tradition.

[Dave]

"Dan Luke" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Thomas Borchert" wrote:
>>> Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>>>
>>
>> From the what??? ROFL!
>
> According to the current right-wing doublespeak in the U. S., Hitler was a
> socialist because his party was called the National Socialist Party,
> Hitler was a fascist, Europe is socialist, therefore Europe is fascist.
>
> How's that for logic?

In the Spanish civil war the Republicans were the commies. Therefore all
Republicans must be commies.
Therefore the US has a commie for a President.

[nobody]

"John R. Levine" wrote:
> World Airways used to do that JFK-LAX. Didn't last.

Something big has changed since then. In the 80s and 1990s, Frequent
Flyier loyalty was extreme. But at one point, the price difference
between the low cost carriers and the legacy carriers eroded that
loyalty, allowing people to choose their airline, instead of always
blindly buying from "their" airline.

Once you give up on FF programmes, you're willing to choose the carrier
that offers the best schedukle/plane/service/price/whatever, then a
carrier that offers a cheaper flight from new york to lax would have a
chance now, whereas it stood no chance before.

[AES]

In article >, nobody >
wrote:

>
> Something big has changed since then. In the 80s and 1990s, Frequent
> Flyier loyalty was extreme. But at one point, the price difference
> between the low cost carriers and the legacy carriers eroded that
> loyalty, allowing people to choose their airline, instead of always
> blindly buying from "their" airline.
>

I think frequent flyer loyalty was seriously eroded also when the
airlines changed over from having more or less open availability for
award travel, except for certain blackout periods that were stated in
advance, and instead began limiting the number of FF award seats on any
flight to such low levels that cashing in FF miles for award travel
became, if not nearly impossible, at least an almost always unpleasant
and unrewarding hassle.

A couple of particularly unpleasant experiences with that and my FF
loyalty went out the window.

[Matt Barrow]

"Dan Luke" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Thomas Borchert" wrote:
>>> Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!
>>>
>>
>> From the what??? ROFL!
>
> According to the current right-wing doublespeak in the U. S., Hitler was a
> socialist because his party was called the National Socialist Party,
> Hitler was a fascist, Europe is socialist, therefore Europe is fascist.
>
> How's that for logic?

Economic fascism - private ownership of means of production but state
control. Also, heavy subsidies of various private corporations.

Political fascism - state control over all aspects of political and private
behavior.

Socialism - either economic fascism (Mussolini's fascism as defined by
Enrico Rocco) or communism, the state ownership and control of productive
resources.

Figure it out.

[Thomas Borchert]

Matt,

> Figure it out.
>

You first.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

[ShawnD2112]

Credibility comes as much from the soundness of one's arguments and
understanding of the topic, not from a particular background or profession.

Shawn

"Vo Gon" > wrote in message
...
>
> "ShawnD2112" > wrote in message
> k...
>> He may not be an expert or in the industry, but I am, and his arguments
>> are pretty much spot on (with the odd caveat thrown in here and there)
>
> Great! Your opinions have some credibility then.
>
>> "Vo Gon" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> "nobody" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> "Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
>>>>> Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in
>>>>> the
>>>>> US for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and
>>>>> not a lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly
>>>>> limited
>>>>> routes so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.
>>>>
>>>> You don't get it.
>>>
>>> How the hell do you know? Do you work in the airline industry? Nope. Do
>>> you work for an aircraft manufacturer? Nope. Do you work for an
>>> aerospace trade journal? Nope. You're a VAX (!!) programmer. Don't
>>> pretend to be an authority on the airline business when you are clearly
>>> not.
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

[Ulf Kutzner]

AJC schrieb:

> >This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there is
> >often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago the
> >United flight was half full
> >
>
> This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
> 380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
> financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
> lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
> Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
> there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.

There is a growth Germany - Russia, I guess linked to migration.
However, flights I used were 15 - 65 % full. Well, I tend to book cheap
flights.

Of course no 747 but 319, 320, 737, 310, 154.

10/11 flights per day FRA <-> MOW (each direction), 3/4 operators.
Number of flights steadily increasing.

Regards, ULF

[Ulf Kutzner]

"Frank F. Matthews" schrieb:

> Cities like New York/Boston, LA/San Francisco, and Houston/Dallas are
> more likely to support increased frequency than larger size if it can be
> done economically.

Won't be easy to increase frequency at New York. Just my guess.

Regards, ULF

[Nik]

"Ulf Kutzner" > wrote in message
-
> There is a growth Germany - Russia, I guess linked to migration.
> However, flights I used were 15 - 65 % full. Well, I tend to book cheap
> flights.
>
> Of course no 747 but 319, 320, 737, 310, 154.
>
> 10/11 flights per day FRA <-> MOW (each direction), 3/4 operators.
> Number of flights steadily increasing.
>

Plain stupid. When you have cities that far you wil only need a morning
flight (that will allow you to get the afternoon/late afternoon at the
"other end" and an evening/late afternoon fligt that will bring you back
late in the day.

The rest is nonsense.

Nik.

[tim]

"Nik" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Ulf Kutzner" > wrote in message
> -
>> There is a growth Germany - Russia, I guess linked to migration.
>> However, flights I used were 15 - 65 % full. Well, I tend to book cheap
>> flights.
>>
>> Of course no 747 but 319, 320, 737, 310, 154.
>>
>> 10/11 flights per day FRA <-> MOW (each direction), 3/4 operators.
>> Number of flights steadily increasing.
>>
>
> Plain stupid. When you have cities that far you wil only need a morning
> flight (that will allow you to get the afternoon/late afternoon at the
> "other end" and an evening/late afternoon fligt that will bring you back
> late in the day.

1) not every one fits into your mould. Some will want a very early
departure which enables them to arrive in time to make a useful
onward connection. Others will want a mid evening return that
allows them to spend as much time at the destination but
still get home without have to resort to a taxi.

2) as many flights as can be filled are necessary - this isn't a
route for which other modes make sense

3) A plane on the ground is very expensive. It's often better
to make a marginal journey even if only partially full.

>
> The rest is nonsense.

It's called competition.

tim

[Chanchao]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:47:09 -0800, AES > wrote some
stuff about "Re: 380 fuel usage", to which I would like to add the following:

>I think frequent flyer loyalty was seriously eroded also when the
>airlines changed over from having more or less open availability for
>award travel, except for certain blackout periods that were stated in
>advance, and instead began limiting the number of FF award seats on any
>flight to such low levels that cashing in FF miles for award travel
>became, if not nearly impossible, at least an almost always unpleasant
>and unrewarding hassle.

That would be "USA based Airlines". Just yesterday I cashed a bunch of miles
for a long flight out of Thailand on Thai Airways. This is for the evening
flight of 12 April. 13 April all the way to 18 April is the main National
Holiday in Thailand (Thai New Year) when the whole country has a holiday.

It's the equivalent of getting an award ticket Los Angeles to Paris on 23 or
24 December. :)

Cheers,
Chanchao

[Ulf Kutzner]

Nik schrieb:

> > There is a growth Germany - Russia, I guess linked to migration.
> > However, flights I used were 15 - 65 % full. Well, I tend to book cheap
> > flights.
> >
> > Of course no 747 but 319, 320, 737, 310, 154.
> >
> > 10/11 flights per day FRA <-> MOW (each direction), 3/4 operators.
> > Number of flights steadily increasing.
> >
>
> Plain stupid. When you have cities that far you wil only need a morning
> flight (that will allow you to get the afternoon/late afternoon at the
> "other end" and an evening/late afternoon fligt that will bring you back
> late in the day.
>
> The rest is nonsense.

SU provides morning connections in Moscow with an overnight flight.

MOW -> FRA allows you a morning flight arriving 1,5 hours after
departure time, if measured in local time.

Regards, ULF

-> rta

[Ulf Kutzner]

Ulf Kutzner schrieb:

> There is a growth Germany - Russia, I guess linked to migration.
> However, flights I used were 15 - 65 % full. Well, I tend to book cheap
> flights.
>
> Of course no 747 but 319, 320, 737, 310, 154.
>
> 10/11 flights per day FRA <-> MOW (each direction), 3/4 operators.
> Number of flights steadily increasing.

Just to add: 321, AB6.

Regards, ULF

[Larry Dighera]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 15:09:23 +0100, Thomas Borchert
> wrote in
>::

>Lee,
>
>> Suppose the 7E7 is wildly popular. It's light weight, efficient
>> engines, 3 day assembly time and very low maintainence cost makes all
>> competing metal aircraft (A300/A310/A330/B757/B767) obsolete.
>>
>
>Don't forget the A350, Airbus's answer to the 7E7


It would appear that sales for Boeing's 7E7 Dreamliner are heating up:


BOEING CO. will sign deals worth up to $7.5 billion to sell 60 of
its 7E7 Dreamliner aircraft to six Chinese airlines on Friday, a
source familiar with the transactions said. The source, citing
U.S. government and company officials, said the aircraft were
being purchased by CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES CO. LTD., CHINA
EASTERN AIRLINES CORP LTD, Air China, Shanghai Airlines Co.
Ltd., Hainan Airlines Co. Ltd. and Xiamen Airlines. Boeing, in
a statement, said it would sign preliminary agreements during a
ceremony at the U.S. Commerce Department attended by the Chinese
ambassador to the United States, Yang Jiechi, and the president
of the China Avaition Supply Co., Li Hai.
(Reuters 04:37 PM ET 01/27/2005)

More:

http://q1.schwab.com/s/r?l=248&a=1049957&m=1006241f97fc505013606a&s=rb050127

----------------------------------------------------------------

[Frank F. Matthews]

Larry Dighera wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 15:09:23 +0100, Thomas Borchert
> > wrote in
> >::
>
>
>>Lee,
>>
>>
>>>Suppose the 7E7 is wildly popular. It's light weight, efficient
>>>engines, 3 day assembly time and very low maintainence cost makes all
>>>competing metal aircraft (A300/A310/A330/B757/B767) obsolete.
>>>
>>
>>Don't forget the A350, Airbus's answer to the 7E7
>
>
>
> It would appear that sales for Boeing's 7E7 Dreamliner are heating up:
>
>
> BOEING CO. will sign deals worth up to $7.5 billion to sell 60 of
> its 7E7 Dreamliner aircraft to six Chinese airlines on Friday, a
> source familiar with the transactions said. The source, citing
> U.S. government and company officials, said the aircraft were
> being purchased by CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES CO. LTD., CHINA
> EASTERN AIRLINES CORP LTD, Air China, Shanghai Airlines Co.
> Ltd., Hainan Airlines Co. Ltd. and Xiamen Airlines. Boeing, in
> a statement, said it would sign preliminary agreements during a
> ceremony at the U.S. Commerce Department attended by the Chinese
> ambassador to the United States, Yang Jiechi, and the president
> of the China Avaition Supply Co., Li Hai.
> (Reuters 04:37 PM ET 01/27/2005)
>
> More:
>
> http://q1.schwab.com/s/r?l=248&a=1049957&m=1006241f97fc505013606a&s=rb050127
>



I thought it was now the 787.

[Lee Witten]

"Frank F. Matthews" > wrote in
:
>
> I thought it was now the 787.
>

It is, but WTF does it matter?

Sorry, you hit a sore spot with me. Nothing personal, Frank.

Zillions of posts here and on other aviation fora about the significance of
the model number of an airplane, and they are all a waste of time and
energy, as far as I'm concerned...

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

Somehow people seem to get a near-orgasmic joy because an aircraft has a
certain number. I just don't get it.

--lw--

[Peter]

In article >, Lee Witten says...
> Somehow people seem to get a near-orgasmic joy because an aircraft has a
> certain number. I just don't get it.

Perhaps aircraft manufacturers are aiming their names at the NOJ folk
rather than the dontcares? Seems to be a win-win-win situation.