Why Airbus Will Stop Making A380s

as someone fascinated by engineering I still remember the day I saw the airbus a380 the biggest passenger jet in the world takeoff on one of its first flights seeing the giant double deck 4 engine jet airliner fly close by was one of those cool moments where a technology surpassed all of my expectations of what's possible and so early this year I was shocked to hear that Elvis will completely end production on the a380 by 2021 [Music] despite the ever-increasing air travel it seems like the a380 is not the right solution for this time and to understand why we need to look back at some of the history of aviation in the late 1950s the first jet airliners revolutionized civil aviation before in order to travel long distances with the propeller planes of the time many stops along the way were required and connecting destinations between Europe and the United States was a challenge new jet airliners such as the Douglas dc-8 and the Boeing 707 were able to reach much higher altitudes and therefore operated much more efficiently in 1958 the Boeing 707 the company's first jet airliner began its regular service by connecting New York City and London it changed travelling completely the transatlantic route between Europe and America already had a large and steadily growing demand and with the help of more efficient aircraft aviation gradually displaced the large ocean liners of the time while one industry was booming another one was in a decline and by the mid-1970s only the Queen Elizabeth two remained which operated as a transatlantic liner only for certain months of the year airlines and manufacturers were looking for solutions to handle the enormous demand which caused congestion at airports not able to grow in size quick enough a large aircraft could carry passengers even more effectively between high demand routes and would also reduce capacity problems caused by many small airplanes at airports Boeing developed the 747 dubbed the jumbo jet which became the world's largest passenger jet at the time in a way it brought aviation to a whole new era and said modern standard for the size of new airports it also allowed carriers to offer longer trips interestingly during the development Boeing was actually very uncertain about the long-term prospects of the 747 at that time there was a big belief that sooner or later supersonic aircraft would dominate the passenger market so in order to make sure that the costly development would be worth it the plane was from the start designed to function as a cargo plane while in the passenger version the upper deck is used for the first-class lounge the cargo version has the ability to lift the front cockpit therefore making it a wide door for cargo but the passenger version was a success as the 747 became the queen of disguise for more than three decades and its success is also based on the implementation of a transportation concept used by Airlines in order to offer cheap flights airlines try to keep their planes as booked out as possible however there are many routes between which there just isn't enough demand to justify a regular direct flight this is called a point-to-point system the problem with this is that all of these flights would not be very busy and it takes a huge number of small aircraft which will take up costly landing slots at airports with this system expanding the airlines network is a slow and cumbersome process therefore airlines tend to use certain bigger airports as hubs where passengers transfer to connecting flights it is allows airlines to better plan passenger flows and also to increase their network quickly if for example another destination is added to this network suddenly a multitude of new routes becomes possible even flights to smaller locations will carry many passengers as the demand has been gathered at the hub location and the flights between the different hubs have a very high volume anyway so large planes such as the Boeing 747 can be filled and now for a particularly economical for that reason in the 1990s Airbus wanted to stop Boeing superiority in the field of wide-body aircrafts with a competing product in the year 2000 after extensive market research they decided to build the a380 the world's first full double-deck jet airliner in addition to the economic consideration to weaken Boeing the project also found as the a380 symbolized the European idea with parts that are produced throughout Europe such as the engines in Great Britain the rear fuselage and tail fin and Germany and a horizontal tail plane in Spain all to be assembled in Toulouse France Airbus receive billions in loans from the governments of Germany France in the United Kingdom and in 2018 those subsidies have been ruled improper by the world trading organisation but even that market entry the timing was not ideal for Airbus while the initial entry into the flight operations was scheduled for 2005 several production difficulties caused delays until the end of 2007 once the production at Airbus moved out the 2008 global economic crisis shook the aviation market airlines made billions in losses and the crisis dampened orders for new aircrafts of all sort an unlike Boeing with the 747 elbas did not end up making a cargo version of the a380 another problem is that the a380 is only ideal for a very specific situation which in turn makes Airbus dependent on a few customers that follow the same philosophy Airbus went for just how specific disease can be seen with the New York London connection the route connecting both hubs earns British Airways more than 1 billion dollars in revenue each year making it the most profitable route in the world and even though British Airways owns 12 a380s they don't operate them on this route instead they operate a mix of 747 7 7 7 s and business-class only a free 18 s one of the reasons is that there is a very high competition on a route like this connecting to hub airports while British Airways offers the most with six round trips a day there are also Virgin Atlantic American Airlines and Delta flights on this route since there are so many different flights between which passengers can choose the load per flight is not that high the a380 is well suited for connect where there is a high passenger density but a small number of flights between two hubs such as New York and London however there are many customers who also need flexibility and British Airways would be less competitive if they reduce the current six slots to just four daily flights on the a380 but there are also airlines with a philosophy that matches the a380 with 109 aircrafts Emirates is by far the largest customer of the a380 followed by Singapore Airlines with 24 aircraft both are state-owned airlines and as flag carriers of very small nations they pursue the same business model Emirates entire fleet consists of wide-body aircraft shuttling back and forth between its Dubai hub and destinations worldwide Dubai's position is strategically valuable for connecting North America and Europe with Asia in Australia functioning as a springboard between international destinations however the aviation world is changing and trending towards more direct connections even on long-haul routes we're placing the hub-and-spoke system with point-to-point travel one reason for this is Boeing 787 Dreamliner Boeing developed the aircraft about the same time as Airbus worked on the a380 but with a completely different strategy the market advantage of the 787 is not its capacity but its reduced operating cost the fuselage is mainly made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic which saves weight and for the first time instead of using the engines to provide cabin pressure they use a bleed list system in which the engines start cabin pressurization de-icing and other functions are achieved through electronic systems this massively increases the engines fuel efficiency and with all of those fuel savings the 787 allows longer direct flights reducing the need for big planes like the a380 to bring people to hub airports all these reasons led to low demand for the a380 and Airbus tried to find new customers worldwide to keep hope up but since the a380 success was dependent on some few big customers once Emirates cancelled their order for 39 more a380s Airbus had to pull the plug on the project the question that remains is where ever we should therefore think of the a380 as a failure because even though it simply isn't lucrative enough for business considerations this does not change the engineering achievement of constructing a plane of this size there have been no incidents leading to fatalities more serious injuries or crashes with the a380 after all a number of record-breaking inventions go down this path the Concorde the first passenger aircraft with supersonic speed failed less because of Technology than because of an inefficient business model and a maglev that promised to revolutionize train travel is struggling with a similar problem therefore when looking at new technologies being developed we should remember to also find business models that support engineering achievements [Music]

Channel: neo

Views: 473,370

Keywords: A380, airbus, boeing, dc-8, dc8, 747, 777, 787, b777, b787, dreamliner, queen of the skies, why, explained, a350, a350neo, aviation, wonderwhy, explainer, engines, rolls royce, technical, Wendover Productions, Boeing's China Problem, The Rise of 20-Hour Long Flights, Airbus A380, end production, stop, emirates, singapore, singapore airlines, dubai, point to point, hub and spoke, hub-and-spoke, swiss001, The Rise and Fall of the A380, Sam Chui

Id: -M6Bvgl6ieU

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019