Are we seeing the end of the era for the 'super-jumbo'?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32384435

by giles • 11 years ago

39 42 11 years ago

bpodgursky• 11 years ago

Maybe I'm not the usual passenger, but I realized recently that it's been many years since I've been on a plane larger than a 737 -- and I fly at least once a month. Most of my flights are to/from reasonable sized but not megacities (SF, St Louis, Kansas City, Nashville, Charleston, Phoenix, etc), and since I try for direct flights, I almost always end up on Embraer 145 or 175 or similar small planes.

I think at long as gas prices aren't too high, far more passengers are going to pay a small premium for direct flights on smaller economy planes, and stay away from the 380s and 747s. I couldn't care less if I'm on a fancy plane with a video screen etc -- having to make a connection is 100x worse.

grecy• 11 years ago

What length of flight are you taking?

I just flew a 12.5 hour from Vancouver to Guangzhou, China then a 9.5 hour from there to Melbourne. Then I did the whole thing in reverse 2.5 weeks later.

On those flights, a video screen makes a huge difference!

dionidium• 11 years ago

He says in the post that he's flying to/from SF, St Louis, Kansas City, Nashville, Charleston, Phoenix, etc. These flights are anywhere from about an hour to 4/5 hours on the top end. STL to SFO, for example, is about 4 hours or so.

tsotha• 11 years ago

I think at long as gas prices aren't too high, far more passengers are going to pay a small premium for direct flights on smaller economy planes, and stay away from the 380s and 747s.

As an airline you don't get a superjumbo to save fuel or provide more amenities. You get one because you have only so many landing slots in a particular airport and the only way to increase passenger volume is to increase the number of passengers per landing.

Animats• 11 years ago

"As an airline you don't get a superjumbo to save fuel or provide more amenities."

See Etihad Airways' A380.[1] "Only half the cost of a private jet".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMr0MsAoeLw

ubernostrum3• 11 years ago

I fly a lot -- as in, I've got around 20,000 miles worth of flying between now and the end of June, and typically hit the 100,000-mile frequent-flier status tier each year -- and I'm based in Kansas City.

And... yes, if you're mostly flying domestically within the contiguous 48 US states, you're going to be almost exclusively on planes seating up to 180 passengers, and often smaller. There are some larger planes on major hub-to-hub routes, and sometimes larger planes on major vacation routes at the right time of year, but for the most part you just don't see them unless you're flying long-haul international.

Really it just comes down to economics. Those 737-sized planes hit a good balancing point in terms of passenger capacity, fuel efficiency, cost to acquire, etc. This makes more sense when you remember that even the non-"jumbo" widebody jets are still freakin' huge; for perspective, here's a photo of an Airbus A320 (one of those 737-sized planes) parked next to a 777:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Virgin-America/Airbus-A320-21...

767s, 787s and A330s are all a bit smaller than the 777, but still not exactly small craft. Flying those big monsters around domestically just isn't viable outside of a few select routes, and even then it doesn't always happen. Domestic widebody flying tends to be to/from Hawaii, and otherwise you need to go to another continent to be on a bigger plane (as will be the case with my upcoming travel -- the only two segments on widebodies are to/from London).

On the plus side, the terrible economics of tiny regional jets are finally catching up to the airlines, and they're being used less or in some cases even retired in favor of the larger/more comfortable Embraer E-Jet series and the smaller end of the A320 family.

akhilcacharya• 11 years ago

Yup. The flight from my city to Houston is on an ERJ145, and is nearly 3 hours. Its absolutely ridiculous.

737's are increasingly becoming used for transcons (USA + South America/Carribean/Hawaii), while the 752's that are still in operation are used for Transatlantic flights.

shawkinaw• 11 years ago

Curious that the article didn't mention the 787, which is what Boeing bet on rather than an even bigger plane like the A380. Seems like that was a good move.

jballanc• 11 years ago

What the article really missed on mentioning is ETOPS (which is part of the success story of the 787). If you look at the total distance, there are very few routes that can only be serviced by a 747 or A380. Historically, though, many more routes were services by these 4-engine behemoths because of ETOPS rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS).

In a nutshell, ETOPS says how far away a twin-engine plane can be from an airport at any time (for emergency landing purposes). Historically, ETOPS limited twin-engine planes to being within 120 minutes flight time of an airport. More recently, due to experience and engineering improvements, ETOPS regulations now allow many twin-engine planes to be up to 240 minutes from an airport.

For the 787, Boeing is even targeting 330 minute ETOPS. Once they achieve that, there will essentially be no routes outside the range of a 787, leaving passenger capacity as the only reason to consider a super-jumbo. Given fuel costs, and improved route planning, there just isn't enough financial incentive to run a super-jumbo when a modern twin-engine wide-body with ETOPS240 or ETOPS330 will do.

Edit: As a side note, ETOPS improvements are also why all the good ol' 3-engine birds (727, L-1011, DC-10, MD-11) have been put to pasture.

jessriedel• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS

That wikipedia page desperately needs a more readable introduction. Thanks for the info.

rogerbinns• 11 years ago

It should also be mentioned that ETOPS covers not only the plane, but also the airline. For example if replacing the engines, then the work will be done by two different teams as it less likely they will make the same mistake. Consequently we now have aviation headlines like the 747-8i (with 4 engines) getting ETOPS (t stands for twin) http://atwonline.com/manufacturers/boeing-747-8i-gains-330-m...

ubernostrum3• 11 years ago

Another important thing to note is that the A380 has, relative to its size, terrible cargo capacity, and using extra hold space to carry cargo in addition to a load of passengers has historically been a lucrative side business for passenger airlines. There are also doubts about whether it would even be possible, structurally, to do a freighter conversion of an A380, meaning that one of the traditional easy ways to squeeze that last bit of money out of a plane (by selling it off to a cargo airline when you no longer want the plane for passenger service) probably isn't an option with the A380. Meanwhile those 3-engine MD-11s and DC-10s are still up in the sky, having undergone freighter conversions to fly for FedEx and DHL and other cargo carriers.

That's also the reason why the 747-8F is the better-selling variant: cargo airlines love the 747 freighters (and from the beginning, the 747 was designed for this, in anticipation of them being retired out of passenger service and replaced by supersonic airliners that never really materialized), even if the passenger versions are no longer a good fit for the market.

josai3• 11 years ago

all the good ol' 3-engine birds [..] have been put to pasture

.. except in cargo operations, where the MD-11F is all the rage. Cargo is exempt from ETOPS, which is why you see trijets still operating for FedEx, DHL, etc.

edit: I see ubernostrum said almost the exact same thing below! I'll leave the comment, as he/she didn't mention the ETOPS cargo exemption.

drpgq• 11 years ago

"Air travel is set to more than double from today's 3.3 billion passengers a year to 7.3 billion by 2034, says the International Air Transport Association"

Even with more efficient planes, that's a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.

guard-of-terra2• 11 years ago

You can easily take your part off by not flying and not owning a car.

mwfunk• 11 years ago

You personally can also help by never riding any sort of buses or trains. Whatever their benefit relative to other options, they are still significant producers. I am a bad person and would never do such a thing, but guard-of-terra is clearly better than all of us and presumably already makes these sacrifices.

gaius2• 11 years ago

No no no, other people should stop flying. It's important that all those Green lobbyists and politicians get to their many, many international conferences!

guard-of-terra2• 11 years ago

They surely have their niche - Europe to East Asia, USA to UAE.

I think they'll survive.

dogma11383• 11 years ago

That only works if you actually have the ability to fill the aircraft, smaller WB/UWB aircraft are cheaper to maintain, require less crew (even per passenger), consume less fuel and are much less restrictive in terms of airports in which they can land and be serviced.

People don't count the fact that one of the reasons why smaller jets are more successful these days is that airports became much better at air traffic control, planes land and take off much faster on average than even few decades ago, combine it with more airports being built or expanded into multi-runway airports and you got much more landing/takeoff slots than before.

Big planes take quite a bit of space in the airport, they need special taxi considerations, and special terminals (especially the A380 with it's full double deck design), all of which comes with a premium in airport taxes when operating such aircraft. It would not surprise me if landing a single A380 costs more than double what landing a A330/787/777 costs these days.

And since It's not only cheaper to fly more smaller planes to the same destination, but also more commercially appealing to customers I highly doubt that companies will continue to run big ass planes for much longer, yes the A380 won't go away, neither will the 747-800 but i really doubt they'll get much more beyond the original orders, and even most of those I'll suspect will be converted into cargo within the next 10-15 years.

I flew on the A380 and the 787-800 to HK (Lufthansa and BA), and on a 777/787 on the same route, and I have to say the smaller aircraft are much nicer to fly on, fewer people, quieter, you get more personal service from the staff, bathrooms don't look (nor smell) like a porta potti at a Kiss reunion concert after the first 3-4 hours of the flight.

xaqfox• 11 years ago

787-8 only. No 800. I know...it broke convention

geoelectric• 11 years ago

OTOH, I took the A380 from SF to France last year and thought it was the quietest, most comfortable plane I'd been on.

Hopefully the same tech advances that hit that plane hit the smaller ones too. That was the first flight where my noise canceling headphones actually seemed somewhat superfluous.

josai3• 11 years ago

most of those I'll suspect will be converted into cargo within the next 10-15 years

My understanding is that it's currently unsure whether the 380 can be converted to cargo at all. The division of the passenger cabin into 2 decks makes for 3 decks total, which will necessitate installation of internal lifts, at significant cost, weight and complexity.

Well, it'll probably happen, but it will probably push the economics out a bit.

billforsternz2• 11 years ago

A weird thing to watch is three separate Auckland (New Zealand) to Dubai Emirates A380 flights depart 15 minutes apart, every day. Why such huge capacity on this obscure transcontinental route ? These three flights are really Sydney-Dubai, Melbourne-Dubai and Brisbane-Dubai. I heard from someone that the airport fees mean it is cheaper for Emirates to park three A380s in Auckland for most of the day than the Australian airports.

For as long as this arrangement lasts, it means that these amazing planes are serving the trans-Tasman (NZ-Aus) route every day. Believe me, there is no comparison at all in flying comfort between an Emirates A380 and any kind of 737/A320 (especially given that the A380s are less than half full).

sfrechtling• 11 years ago

You have to keep in mind that to get to Europe, any Australasian has to stop over at least once. Dubai is the most convenient; so really this route is Australasia to Europe.

billforsternz2• 11 years ago

Well, yes. Dubai is the Emirates hub. Europe-Australasia is one reason Dubai makes sense as a hub location. In fact one of the (few) redeeming features of travelling to Europe from Australasia is the large number of countries that are about half way, meaning a lot of airline/stopover options.

josai3• 11 years ago

it is cheaper for Emirates to park three A380s in Auckland

I think parking at Sydney is about $15/tonne MTOW - the 380's MTOW is 575 tonnes, so that's a cool $8700/day just to sit there doing nothing.

Even if they lose a few thousand on a half-full flight, it evidently still makes sense.

switch007• 11 years ago

I went to get my connection in Dubai to Melbourne and was confused by the correct flight number but Auckland destination! I thought there must be a reason for the routing - interesting.

jpatokal2• 11 years ago

There are two major future super-jumbo markets not mentioned here, and they're whoppers: core domestic routes in China and India, eg. Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou/Hong Kong and Delhi/Mumbai/Chennai/Hyderabad/Kolkata. The distances are too long to be covered by any form of terrestrial transport, even bullet train (there's already one for BJ-SH, but it takes five hours), and as both countries get richer, demand will grow exponentially. China's airports are huge, but badly hampered by military ATC restrictions, while India's byzantine permitting process means eg. Mumbai's airport isn't going to expand any time soon (and I'm not holding my breath for the construction of Navi Mumbai), which means the only way to increase capacity is larger planes. And indeed, China Southern is already flying A380s domestically.

http://www.ausbt.com.au/the-world-s-shortest-airbus-a380-fli...

zhte415• 11 years ago

You are super-jumbo correct.

vinay427• 11 years ago

Is there a reason Bangalore is not included there? It's the most populous city in the south and is growing rapidly.

jpatokal2• 11 years ago

No, that should be in the list as well. As should a large number of obscure-outside-China-but-huge Chinese cities like Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, etc.

pmontra• 11 years ago

"We fill our aeroplanes because of the way we design the interiors, the amount of money we spend on the brand, and [in] getting the job done."

Is this really how people pick an airline? I type in my destination in a web site, sort the options by price, discard the ones with too many or too inconvenient connections, pick the cheaper. The airline is not so important. The plane definitely not, given that on intercontinental routes they are more or less the same and some companies are geographically placed on optimal locations: going from Europe to Australia with one or two stops in a single day basically means flying through the Emirates.

darkmighty• 11 years ago

Yes, but the margin on that is already very slim. By selling a single cabin which no one else offers and charging outrageous amounts they compensate for that. At least that's how I would explain it.

rwmj• 11 years ago

When I fly to Japan, I prefer to go ANA even if it costs 20-30% more (say an extra £150-200) for the 12 hour flight. Economy is always going to be horrible, but ANA fly a wide body plane (so you get slightly more seat) and have better entertainment.

phillc73• 11 years ago

Sometimes this is how I choose an airline.

Next week I'm flying Vienna to Sydney. There are only a few one stop options. I wasn't prepared to consider two stops. e.g. Vienna - London - Bangkok - Sydney. This limited my choices somewhat, as only a few airlines fly from Vienna to Sydney, one stop.

Having flown Emirates previously, I thought they provided very good service, the meals were better than average, the in flight entertainment provided a good selection, the seats comfortable etc etc. The stopover time in Dubai is less than three hours. And I know Dubai airport provides complimentary baby strollers, which is a nice touch when traveling with a small child.

I could have flown cheaper, but was happy to pay an extra EUR300 total cost (two adults, one infant) to fly with an airline I'm hoping will provide better than average service.

For short haul, I don't even choose the cheapest option all the time, as I'd rather pay an extra EUR100 to not have to deal with the crap of Ryanair.

For long haul, it's definitely worth paying a little extra for a premium airline.

gaius2• 11 years ago

This is a pure PR piece for Boeing which lost the jumbo wars. The only question is why the BBC is running it.

Are we seeing the end of the era for the 'super-jumbo'?

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