Race is over, the Americans won

[Skybird]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47225789

The duel of two design philosophies - A380 versus Dreamliner - is decided. Airbus failed. Expensively so.

While I would never board a flying brick, I was one of those thinling that the big capacity of the Airbus would make it the winner in the long distance flying arena of the Middle to Far East.

Biggest looser: the tax payers. I hate subsidized economy schemes. You cannot plan better than the market does all by itself. I wonder whether Airbus would have dared to try this design if they would not be heavily subsidized.


Beside the A380, it is the A400M that is a burden for Airbus' otherwise quite good yearly numbers. Anothe rone of these prestigious stupid political pet hobbies. I do not believe too strongly in these multi-national production schemes. Don't they say: too many chefs spoil the soup?

[Catfish]

Airbus is being subsidized? And Bombardier got subsidies?

Boeing received $457 million in federal grants, which are typically non-repayable, between 2000 and 2014. In addition to that, there was a whopping $64 billion in federal loans and loan guarantees.
Additionally, Boeing gets a lot of US 'defense' contracts. Win-win for the better subsidized company.

Then, China.


Regarding the Airbus 380 airliner: It's the wings. The plane is not big enough.
The wings have been designed for a lengthened version of the A380, so not being forced to costly produce several wing types with their different systems, but the bigger version was never built.

Airbus may now pull the plug on UK wing building of the Airbus, but it is more related to the uncertainties of brexit than of quality or production problems, or the 380.

[Skybird]

The main argument against the A380 is not the wings or its production costs, but that it cannot be economically maintained. At least other, smaller aircraft can be operated more economically and cost-efficient. Airbus expected too hugh passenger numbers per flight. Carriers found that these expectations were unrealistic.


Subsidies are bad, and a market distortion aiming at bypassing the need for competitveness. No matter who does them. The best reply to them would be to boycott according products completely, forcing the producer to raise subsidies to 100% of the production costs and needed profit margins - so that he realises its not worth to go this way.



In the past 10 years, in the EU the quota of non-survivable, non-profitable, non-competitve companies has more than tripled from once 5% to now almost 18%. this is a growing burden for the tax payer, for the other parts of the economy, and it means a generla weakening of the whole economy. A foul company must be allowed to go bancrupt instead of keeping this dead zombie corpus moving with subsidies, forever, just not to piss the employees in the next election.



A few get fed. The vast majority must pay the hefty rice. The ration notoriosuly get pushed for the worse. This cannot go well forever, sooner or later it must go the way of the economies in the Warsaw Pact zone.

[Catfish]

So Boeing built a bigger 777 to be able to compete with the Airbus 380, but Airbus fails because it is too big?
http://www.traveller.com.au/boeing-p...us-a380-gpwg8b

The A380 is not a failure, but indeed selling numbers did not live up to expectations. Happens everywhere. Boeing will soon see what that means for their series.
Two engines need less fuel, of course. Airbus decided to go the safer way by using four engines for trans-ocean flights. Good luck to a two-engined 777 losing an engine over the Pacific. Cost effectiveness always has to beat security, according to those golden economic laws. Like the "Herald of Free Enterprise" [sic!] sinking, due to personnell cost savings and technical obsolescence.

As i said before the problem are the 380's wings, designed for a bigger plane. Used on the "normal" 380s they are relatively too big, with a larger pass surface inducing more resistance, thus increasing the fuel consumption and higher maintenance costs. Had they constructed an adapted second smaller wing for this initial smaller type of cell, consumption would be better but construction costs would have skyrocketed. You could say Airbus was not able to compete with Boeing's financial backing.

As it is now american companies are heavily supported by the state, intended to push all others out of the market (read: hegemony everywhere. MAGA). Just like they do in China with the upcoming COMAC airliner company.
Airbus is not a bad company at all, but imho US producers still have a technological advantage and better feel of things. Most of today's systems have been invented there, and while others are catching up, the US still has an edge.

After all especially in the aircraft industry, economic decisions are one side, but safety and backup systems are another (and more important than in other branches of technical production). Boeing and Airbus are competitors of course, and their fights, accusations and court meetings have cost them more than several of their aircraft.

Additionally, an aircraft producer designs and builds the body (cell) of the plane and designs the wings profiles, while most other systems like avionics, engines and (if at all) redundancy systems can be chosen freely by the purchaser, from other companies. And while the aircraft cell producers can give recommendations, there is no obligation for the purchaser to follow it. Economical concerns against technics and safety.

And don't get me started about the selling of information and whole wing profiles to China, by US companies.

[Skybird]

Base model of the 777 is the version 200 for around 440 passengers. It was build - in 1994, and last plane delivered was - 2007


the 200LR was meant to dleiver - bigger range (LR=Long Range). It has around 300 passenger seats.


Version 300 was builkd already before the A380 as well, and can seat a maximum of around 550 passengers. It gets build since 2004 until the present.


The version X exists as a plan so far, the design again focusses on extending - range.


The 777 is big yes. Becasue it is the successor to the 747 and is designed to serve over the very long ranges.



The competing design to the A380 before it was started in produciton, was not the 777, but the Dremaliner. As maller, luxurious and much more cost-efficient plane.



The A380 was designed with a maximum of - 850 passengers on mind. Most planes delivered sacrifice capacity for more space and luxury inside, however. Which reduces the econiomic formula. It got its type rating not before - 2007.



Whatever I havbe random-read baout the A380 ion the past months and years, was not the tehcnology, although it is a complicated aircraft to buold, they say; but it is the need to have unrealistically high numbers opf passnegers (=no empty seats) in order to run the aircraft within range of fincially sustainable numbers. And these numbers of passengers the carriers do not get for their A380s. While the costs of maintaining and fuelling have seen severla steep rises.



The Dreamliner competed with better cost-economy and luxury. The 777 desighn idea is that of maximising its range. Airbus thought it would get even more passengers into a plane. But the reality is that plane flies too ioften with too many empty seats.



Too big to be economic anymore. I think I read the 777 is cheaper to techncially maintain as well, and less complicated. Airbus expected that passenger numbers would climb faster and steeper and thus their plane would find a market "niche". But it shows that smnaller ploanes are sufficient to serve the demand, while running much more economically. And I do not mean the fuel consumption of the engines. whioch are within the range of m odenr engines, I mean the number of tickets needed to come up for operation hours'S costs.


However, alea jacta east. Airbus gambled, and lost. they planned for a superbig dinosaur, and thats what they got. I just read in Der Spiegel that the Boeing chief in the early nineties, when learnign about the design plan of Airbus, should have commented with a quote by Patton: "If you see your enemy making mistakes, do not disturb him".

[Jimbuna]

I flew to the US on a 777 back in 2008 and to Mexico in a 787 back in October and whilst enjoying both flight experiences I'd say the 787 flight edged it but travelling first class on the 787 made up for most of the difference.

[Mike Abberton]

I remember reading about the development of high-end market (as in # of passengers) back when development started. I had a subscription to Aviation Week back then, and similar to what Skybird said, Airbus was basically building an airplane on specifications and assuming/hoping the airline market would move in that direction.

Boeing decided to design planes to fit the market as it existed at the time without trying to project what the market could possibly be. With larger/more efficient derivatives of the 747, Boeing already had a plane that could compete fairly closely in the super-heavy market, and they shut the whole line down because they didn't think there was a super-heavy market.

In the 70's-80's, the 747 was a PR goldmine for Boeing. To many, it symbolized the glamour or airline travel for a long time. People talked proudly if they had ever flown on a 747, and personally, I think at least part of the reason that the A380 was built was purely for bragging rights to have a "bigger" plane than Boeing produced. Unfortunately, the airline industry moved on from glamorous travel and fully into mass transit in the meantime, and super-heavies don't work well in that market for the same reason you don't have city buses with 200 seats. You can't fill them.

[Rockstar]

Hmmm Boeing wins contracts which in turn might be a good for manufacturers of bionic exoskeletons. I know one EKSO if they can get their debt under control it will become a profitable stock. Well, too be honest it is for me right now its kinda bullish.

[em2nought]

I always feel the air conditioning is substandard when I fly on an Airbus. Like somebody needs to buy a few cans of "Freon" and charge that sucker.

[mapuc]

From what I understand it's the maintenance and the fuel cost that makes A 380 so expensive for the owner, and it was therefore some airliner had cut down on their order.

My point:

It's not so much the size of a civil plane, but more a question of:

Material
maintenance cost
Fuel cost.

What future plane should have is

Material that is way easier and way strong than todays correspondence
and furthermore is easy and cheap to maintenance

Fuel well the engine they have today are, what I understand, made effective as possible
So perhaps they should look into alternativ fuel who may be cheaper and more green to the environment

But what do I know about all this.

Markus