NEW EU Aibus A380!!!

[GuyJean]

I've found a site called http://www.seatguru.com that has been very helpful in my trip planning.....

Sweet find! Thanks!

GJ

[IkemenTommy]

This was American Airlines?

I can continue to say that the worst airlines are always US. In no particular order, are Delta, AA, Northwest, and United. United seems to got their shit together finally, but the stewardesses are still butt ugly and they serve prison food. I heard Continental is the bomb, but I have no experience with them because of frequent mileage issues. I try to stick with Star Alli flights only.

[Greji]

I try to stick with Star Alli flights only.

Ahh, Tommy, I hate to be nosey (not really), but what happened to your new job. Every time you post now, you've just gotten off an airplane! Does that go with the new turf?

[American Oyaji]

Ya know, I've flown United from the U.S. to Japan and back and I must say It's been an OK experience.

[IkemenTommy]

Ahh, Tommy, I hate to be nosey (not really), but what happened to your new job. Every time you post now, you've just gotten off an airplane! Does that go with the new turf?

Call me Mr. International.. a playa with the passport

[Greji]

Call me Mr. International.. a playa with the passport

hehehe. iiii na!

[kurohinge1]

... A380 will allow UPS to to massive lifts, India may look at an alternative design which will allow almost 900 people on board

And that's just on the left wing!

I mean, look at what their neighbours (in Bangladesh) can do with a train:

[IkemenTommy]

[quote="kurohinge1"]And that's just on the left wing!

I mean, look at what their neighbours (in Bangladesh) can do with a train:



]
That looks like the daily Yamanote-sen during rush hour.

[nullpointer]

One year of build time compressed into 7 minutes. This is how they make an airbus.Nice Video.

[Adhesive]

The A380 looks sweet, I can't wait to see it on the runway for myself.

I'm 6'2", and flying in coach internationally is torture. Are there any actual specs for the A380's leg room?

[Buraku]

Volunteers injured in A380 drill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4847344.stm
One man broke his leg and another 32 people suffered minor injuries during an emergency evacuation drill of the new A380 superjumbo in Germany.


Plane owner Airbus said the exercise - a key step which the A380 must take to prove its airworthiness - was a "great success" despite the injuries.
About 850 passengers and 20 crew were evacuated from the plane in 80 seconds.

[Greji]

Volunteers injured in A380 drill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4847344.stm
One man broke his leg and another 32 people suffered minor injuries during an emergency evacuation drill of the new A380 superjumbo in Germany.

They claim it is just 26 feet from the top deck to the ground! It looks more like five stories. They ought to issue parachutes for emergency exits out of the upper deck!

[Buraku]

Are the Japanese going to build an airport for this Superjumbo....or will they just continue to allow narita airport and kansai to sink deeper into debt

[Buraku]

The PR for the Scarebus A-380(tm) says it will have enough room for "shopping and a casino"....Starbucks, McDonalds.

^That's right. And there will be a bar of course. See the picture above.
Some Airlines plan to integrate showers and a kids room. But look at this, it's amazing:






Dingo can't see this catching on sigificantly unless airfares are substantially reduced in compensation.

^The air tickets are much cheaper!!

And will this plane be able to land at any airports besides Sydney?

^This big baby requires a long runway like a Jumbo. Nevertheless there's another important issue. These planes need their special XXL hangar and not all countries can effort this, therefore they might hold in France, Frankfurt/Munich (Hamburg?), Dubai and in some other countries for maintenance.


Singapore Airlines will be the first customer to obtain the brand new A380 in 2006. I'm so excited to fly with that big Dumbo.
By the way I always fly with Singapore Airlines, they got the most beautiful stuartdess in the world

By the way, hi Dingo... long time no see, till now no avatar huh :P

My friend sent me this photo, taken over Sydney this morning, with the caption "Guess what just flew over our place?... "



. . .

... OMG! that guy isnt the co-pilot!?!

SOMEONE GET JACK BAUER UP HERE!!!

Union leaders were seeking urgent talks last night with defence group BAE Systems following reports that the company was planning to sell its stake in Airbus.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1749007,00.html
About 13,000 workers are employed, mainly at Broughton, north Wales, and Filton, Bristol, building wings for commercial aircraft.

[Yorik]

I used to work for BAE Systems, and before they merged with GEC Marconi and were called British Aerospace.. They are one of the most volatile companies that I have ever come accross, the main issue is that the major board are too concerned about day-to-day to look past their own noses.. No offence to them, but the forward planning that isn;t doen in that company will eventually be it's undoing..

BAE Systems are excellent fire fighters, they come in where there is a problem and make that problem go away, they don't prevent it from happening again, nor do they ever stop one happening that they can see, they just fix it after the event.. The Saudi Arabian air force is "looked after" (babysat) by BAE Systems, and their planes fall from the sky..

I say let them run, there is plenty of other very good wing manufacturers to take their place..

[Buraku]

[Buraku]

The world's biggest airliner, the 555-seater Airbus A380 superjumbo, is to make its UK debut next month, it was announced today.

The huge plane, whose wings are built in Britain, will fly into Heathrow airport in west London on May 18.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0300business/0100news/tm_objectid=16996079&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=superjumbo-to-make-uk-debut-next-month-name_page.html
While the aircraft is at Heathrow, airport compatibility checks will be carried out with airport operator BAA.

[Tsuru]

Did someone mention that the A380 in its current state is by no means the final model? They are going to make a stretch version, the A380-900, which is about 80m long. Right up to the limit.

Artist's impression:





It looks more proportional than the A380-800, I think.

[Jack]

I don't believe any airline will use the A380 with 555 seats. The typical configuration will probably be 700 seats or more. The aircraft is being certified for a maximum of 853 people. When you consider the operating expenses and fuel it takes to get its ass off the ground, 555 passengers (assuming 100% load factor) wont be enough to pay for all the cost. I see this plane flying with 750 seats at 85% load factor would mean 640 people or more.

Narita is the only airport equiped to handle this aircraft. Heathrow, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Narita, LAX, Charles de Gaule, Frankfurt, Dubai, JFK, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and a few others are the only airports likely to see this bird.

[canman]

"Airbus denies standing room 'seats'"
There was an article this morning in the Yomiuri today about how Aribus wants to introduce standing room only seats. Most aviation experts said it was not likely, but I wonder are they really thinking about it. Man that would suck to fly from Newark, or Detroit to Narita having to stand all the way. Here is the rest of the article.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/25/news/companies/airline_standing/
Here is a better view.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/now_we_know_why.php

[Jack]

The standing room trial balloon is for the India market. Not for long haul intercontinental flying. Don't count on standing room on aircraft just yet. An aircraft has to be certified to be evacuated in 90 seconds, more people means more exit doors and more oxygen masks and so on. Each exit door has to be manned by a flight attendant and there are zillions of other regulatory issues that make standing room unrealistic.

[Buraku]

I don't believe any airline will use the A380 with 555 seats. The typical configuration will probably be 700 seats or more. The aircraft is being certified for a maximum of 853 people. When you consider the operating expenses and fuel it takes to get its ass off the ground, 555 passengers (assuming 100% load factor) wont be enough to pay for all the cost. I see this plane flying with 750 seats at 85% load factor would mean 640 people or more.

Narita is the only airport equiped to handle this aircraft. Heathrow, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Narita, LAX, Charles de Gaule, Frankfurt, Dubai, JFK, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and a few others are the only airports likely to see this bird.

Airbus unveils luxury options for A380's first passengers

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19407449-23349,00.html

[IkemenTommy]

[Tsuru]

That's not iii-hiiit

[Buraku]

That's the Beluga

its an airbus cargo plane
http://www.northamerica.eads.net/web/lang/en/800/content/OF00000029700002/5/42/41200425.html
and was used to deliver food and medical supplies during the Katrina disaster

[Buraku]

Future visions: New in-flight entertainment systems for the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 examined
http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/09/05/Navigation/177/208783/Future+Visions.html

As Airbus and Boeing advance airliner designs, can their in-flight entertainment suppliers keep pace? New systems for the A380 and 787 are now being tested

[Taro Toporific]

From this week's Travel Insider newsletter (EU-based)...

[INDENT]TRAVEL INSIDER 6 October, 2006
http://thetravelinsider.info/2006/email1006.htm

It has been an incredible week, watching Airbus collapse to the point where its ongoing viability has to now be questioned. In little more than a year it has changed from market leader, untroubled by Boeing and dominating the new plane marketplace, to now being in disgrace in front of its customers and prospective customers, and in financial difficulty. Worse - its bad news is not necessarily all over. ...

The Amazing Airbus Collapse

When delays of about six months were first announced to Airbus' showpiece giant A-380 double decker plane last year, airline customers were disappointed but probably not entirely surprised. But the announcement in June this year of a further six months of delays was greeted much less positively by airline customers, who were now facing a cumulative year of delay and the need to come up with temporary solutions for their projected airplane needs. Airbus spread a lot of money around to restore their goodwill and to meet contractual obligations for delivery delays; the company's share priced tumbled, and their CEO left amid allegations of dishonestly selling large parcels of shares shortly before the news became public.

Three weeks ago, rumors started to leak out about further delays to the A-380 program, and the general expectation was there might be as much as another six month delay. Airbus grudgingly confirmed there would be further delays, but only this week dropped its bombshell surprise on the aviation community.

Delays would be a further twelve months, not six, making for a cumulative total of 24 months slippage beyond originally promised delivery schedules. Instead of Singapore Airlines operating planes in regular scheduled service about now, and shortly thereafter being joined by Qantas and other carriers, Airbus will now deliver a ceremonial single A-380 to SQ in October next year, and make no further deliveries to any airline until 2008, when 13 planes will be delivered. 25 more will be delivered in 2009, and 45 in 2010. At this rate, the current order backlog won't be cleared until sometime in 2012 - six years from now.

Airbus' credibility with airlines is in tatters, and even in the polite diplo-speak that is usually adopted between airlines and the suppliers with whom they are locked in deadly symbiotic embraces, it is clear the airlines are furious.

I'd wondered two weeks ago if Airbus may lose one or more of its A-380 orders as a result of what I then thought might be another six month delay. With the bad news now being a twelve month delay, it seems almost certain that one or more airlines will choose to 'teach Airbus a lesson' by publicly cancelling part or all of their order (even if they subsequently re-instate it at a future time).

A lot of speculation is mounting about Emirates' intentions. Emirates currently has placed orders for 43 of the total 159 planes currently on order, and some people are predicting the airline might cancel as many as half of these, opting instead for the new Boeing 747-8, a passenger plane which, to date, has not won a single sale.

There are also rumors from several sources hinting that Boeing might be considering a truly enlarged version of the 747, not just the slightly lengthened 747-8 on present offer with a trivial increase of 34 passengers. This might possibly take the form of a 747 derivative with a full length upper deck.

If Boeing could come up with a true alternative to the A-380, and commit to getting it in the air in a reasonable timeframe, it is likely many of the current A-380 customers would convert, if for no other reason than to punish Airbus for their unreliability.

It is impossible to understand how such massive delays can slip into a program that already has four airplanes in the air and which had been promising regular manufacturing operations and deliveries to commence in the very near future. Delaying a new plane two years when it is just a design on a sheet of paper, six or more years away from taking to the air is one thing. But delaying a plane two years when there are already four planes flying and deliveries promised starting from almost right now is hard to understand.

Airbus is blaming the delays on issues to do with laying out the electrical wiring harness in the plane. Unusually, the wiring is largely made from aluminum rather than copper in the A-380.

In related bad news for the A-380, it seems that air safety authorities will be requiring greater separation between the A-380 and other airplanes when the plane is taking off and landing at airports, to protect following planes against vortices behind the giant A-380. This would require an extra two minutes of delay to space out other planes behind it on take-off, and one minute on landing. This might sound trivial, but it is a significant hit on a runway's ability to maximize its number of take-offs or landings, and stands to negate a large part of the A-380's theoretical benefit - the ability to fly more passengers in and out of airports already operating their runways at capacity.

So far, so bad. But wait, there's more. Even if Airbus doesn't lose a single A-380 order, the further delay of 12 months in getting cash from selling these $300 million a piece planes (list price), combined with major new payouts in compensation (totalling billions of dollars), and the increasingly weak US dollar exchange rate (Airbus has most of its costs in Euros, but has been selling its planes based on US dollar pricing, so as the dollar weakens, the actual money received by Airbus drops) all combine to put the company in a severe cash bind.

This is particularly a problem with the increased scrutiny of government funding to Airbus, and with Airbus becoming so unpopular, it would be difficult for European governments to give the company more funding anyway. Airbus seems likely to need a lot more funding to underwrite the development costs of its new A-350 plane, estimated at perhaps costing $8 billion or more, twice earlier estimates.

The A-350 program is another shambles. Airbus (and I too) initially under-estimated the success of Boeing's 787 program, and believed that a slightly re-worked A-330 with new more efficient engines, and giving it a new model name (A-350) would be a sufficient competitive response. The market showed this to be totally unacceptable, and so in an embarrassing turnaround earlier this year, Airbus announced it was returning to the drawing board and would be designing a completely new improved plane in lieu of the originally proposed slightly tweaked A-330 derivative.

So far, few details have emerged about the new A-350, and only one customer has appeared - Aeroflot, the Russian national carrier that split an order for planes between Airbus and Boeing, apparently solely on political grounds rather than on the merits of the two planes. It is believed Aeroflot's preference, prior to political pressure from the Kremlin, was to buy all Boeing. So Airbus has one largely undeserved order for 20 A-350s while Boeing has so far managed to bag 377 orders for its 787.

And now there is speculation mounting that Airbus may be forced to kill its A-350 development, due to lack of funds. This would cede a large and profitable sector of the airplane market entirely to Boeing, making it easier for Boeing to make inroads into formerly all-Airbus airlines and harder for Airbus to do the same to formerly all-Boeing airlines.

Until now Airbus has correctly described the A-350 as 'fundamental to its future'. Which rather begs the question - what might Airbus' future be, without the A-350, and with an A-380 program in tatters?

But wait, there's more. Airbus also disclosed that its A-400M military freighter could be facing problems, cost over-runs and delays.

Is there any good news on Airbus' horizon? None that I can see, and whereas little more than a year ago it was reigning supreme and seemingly unchallenged as airplane manufacturing market leader, it now seems much further behind Boeing in all respects than Boeing ever was with respect to Airbus.

Europe's pride and purported proof that European business can succeed against US business - Airbus - is becoming Europe's massive embarrassment.

The winner in all of this is certainly Boeing. To my astonishment, I may even choose to buy a few Boeing shares.[/INDENT]

[Tsuru]

A Dutch newspaper reported that the root of this whole crisis is that the French government is vetoing technologically superior (German) solutions for the whole line of Airbus aircraft on the basis of them NOT BEING FRENCH and has been for the last 30 years, although they will never admit that to the public. To make a long story short: they sooner die than let the Dutch, Germans or, god forbid, the British take care of the A380's wiring problems and ended up completely redoing most of the aircraft's electrical harnesses by themselves, causing delay upon delay. Apparently the French media are being very very quiet about the downfall in Toulouse.

When Airbus was first founded to build the A300-B, the British, Spanish, German and French government each held a share, but in time all governments except the French retreated. The consequences are now crippling the A380 to the point where customers are walking away. Emirates, the single largest customer for the A380, is already openly speculating about converting about half of their 45 orders to options and buying more aircraft from Boeing. Singapore are basically calling them a bunch of liars, and just about everyone is seeking millions and "stop-gap" aircraft of other Airbus types as compensation.

Meanwhile French workers are threatening strikes if they are forced to make longer hours to get the A380 in the air in time (they now go home at 16:30 on a friday afternoon and don't come back to the factory before 9:00 the following monday).
I seem to recall when the 747 was going through this period its inception workers and management alike were basically living and sleeping at the factory to keep the delays to a minimum. The 747 was "only" delayed by 2 months in the end and not even by their own fault, and while it was the engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney that caused these delays for Boeing, ironically Rolls-Royce, one of the manufacturers for the A380's engines has earlier this week called for a 12-month production stop for the Trent 900 as there are now too many finished engines for the amount of finished airframes. It's now been 1,5 years for the A380 since it first took to the air.

Where did all the pride go? Get to work and finish the bloody thing! People are waiting...

It seems to me the honneur de la patrie and the trade unionists are getting the better of common sense and are now slowly but surely killing Airbus. The now German CEO is threatening to- or has already resigned only months after he first took office, over the mess within Airbus/EADS.

Same thing with the French ruining the central European government: everyone else wants it to be permanently based in Brussels and as far as most people in the rest of the world are aware it is there, but the French want to keep wasting millions of taxpayers' €€€ by forcing hundreds of MP's, their staff and supporting staff to relocate to Strasbourg every other month. And since I brought up Brussels: Meanwhile no EU politician has dared to adress the sensitive issue over the A380, which may end up costing the EU taxpayer billions upon billions more.

[IkemenTommy]

For some reason, Airbus's marketing strategy resembles that of Sony for how they have continuously delayed the release date of PlayStation3.

We'll be having better supersonic flights before the A380 is ever lifted off of the ground.

[F_O_R_E_X]

tsuru
you struck the nail on it's head.... very good post of yours.

i would just like to add that former Airbus head & co chief exec. of EADS "noel forgeard" MADE 2.5 million Euros (3million USD'S)
by selling shares of EADS before the Delays were announced!

talk about insider trading ??

besides i heard there are also problems with the other jumbo jets A350?

i'm european but this is all becoming quite shameful & embarassing