Why US Carriers NEVER ordered the Airbus A380

[Music] the airbus a380 saw great success worldwide becoming the de facto aircraft of choice for emirates and a flagship plane of qantas british airways air france and many more to name a few but it never got the same success in the united states or in the western hemisphere why did none of the big three united american and delta order the airbus a380 what would have it looked like had they ordered it and why do these reasons mean that we will never see big planes in the united states again let's jump in thanks so much for tuning in today this is a mega video so if you haven't subscribed then i suggest you have a go click that red button and see what happens it's free and you can cancel your subscription at any time airbus's biggest plane the a380 was certainly within reach of u.s carriers and should have ticked all the boxes for an airline to turn a considerable profit however no north american or south american carrier for that matter ended up with the plane although two airlines did technically order the plane but we'll get to that in a moment first let's discuss what made the a380 attractive in the first place with a capacity of an average of 600 passengers depending on configuration the airbus a380 is the perfect plane for many airlines to operate with so many seats the aircraft can operate the lower seat cost per passenger than any other aircraft meaning in a cutthroat price war the a380 will always be able to allow the airline to get ahead of the competition this feature also makes it perfect for high capacity airports like london heathrow where a landing slot pair is worth millions of dollars making multiple frequency operations impossible the a380 also has an excellent range knocking out at 8 200 nautical miles for many airlines like emirates and british airways the plane can nearly reach all of their destinations in the world but a few remote localities cough cough australia and thanks to the vast amount of space on board the airbus a380 could fit all sorts of perks for those willing to pay for it such as beds private cabins and even showers incredible airlines found that using the a380 on routes between hubs to be the most effective such as linking cities like new york and london or singapore to sydney and here is where the problem lies with u.s carriers thus far we have determined that the a380 works best on long-haul high-density routes between hubs but the north american market isn't suited for that type of aircraft while the north american market does have large hub airports like lax and in new york these airports are only the tip of the airport iceberg in america in fact many of the daily flights leaving these hubs are not to another hub but to smaller regional centers these regional center airports not equipped to take a plane like the airbus a380 with no jet bridges to reach the second level or they're taxi wise and not wide enough to take the plane let alone have a market demand for 600 seats at a time and speaking of market demand we also need to consider the demand for multiple flights per day while some routes do have well over 600 seats per day in north america especially the aforementioned lax to new york passengers have shown a preference to choose different times to fly they want hourly departures or in the minimal case a choice of a morning flight a noon flight an evening and a late flight an airbus a380 is not flexible enough to offer these flight times or in order to do so the airline would need a fleet of airbus a380s emirates does manage to do this with its london to dubai route late last year with multiple a380s leaving per day but that's a special case with an airline with plenty of a380s and plenty of demand a situation that is not often replicated in the united states in addition to all this we also need to factor in the long-haul nature of the airbus a380 it has long boarding times compared to other planes and is designed to fly long distances in the united states many of the routes that are in heavy use are shuttle routes linking major cities the a380 isn't really designed for these quick turnaround routes nor these short haul connection shuttle routes although airlines might try to kick off using the a380 for a tiny route much like the a380 flight from sydney to canberra in australia which is not actually open to domestic passengers and therefore is not really considered a profitable route and speaking of profit let's have a chat about making money with the airbus a380 the a380 came to the market at a time when twin jet airlines were all the range with a boeing triple 7 and the airbus a330 where you only needed four engine aircraft for the most extreme of ocean routes if you don't need to perform these long haul ops then it is far cheaper to operate a twin jet aircraft instead for example an airbus a380 is approximately 22 000 an hour to run whilst a boeing 787 dreamliner is only around 9 000 per hour airlines would be smarter to operate two 787 services than a single a380 flying each dreamliner plane to a different destination in a hub to spoke model than a hub to hub model with the a380 and just to touch on profitability imagine if a carrier doesn't fill up the whole a380 plane with those passengers the a380 only has a low seat cost when the plane is full and believe me it's a lot easier to fill up an entire 300 seater twin jet then it is it to fill up a 600-seater a380 lastly the a380 doesn't have a second life on the market as a cargo plane unlike the boeing 747 this is because of myriad of other factors but simply foot it isn't really set up for cargo operations the aircraft's airframe is too heavy when empty that cargo operators will run out of lifting capacity before they run out of empty space on board meaning that cargo airlines like ubs and fedex who operate daily night flights with cargo and favor a single flight over frequency still don't see a reason to update to the type both of these carriers fedex and ups did order the a380 when it was first announced so technically two u.s airlines did actually order it but then they ended up cancelling it with fedex express cancelling its 10 back in 2006 and ups its 10a 380s in 2007. after delays to the a380 passenger program led to the cargo program pushed back almost indefinitely and you can watch all about this unbuilt future of the airbus a380 in this video right here so the question remains did any of the us carriers get close to ordering the airbus a380 did united delta or american airlines really consider the double-decker airframe when it was launched back at the turn of this millennium and if they didn't what was their excuse back in 2014 steve dixon delta's svp for flight operations said that we don't see an application for the a380 in our network dixon added that four engine planes such as the a380 were no longer viable aircraft options for most of delta's markets the reliability of the two engine airplanes and efficiency of them is just too compelling as for american airlines it was actually the airline's lack of major hubs that made it shy away from the a380 speaking to business insider in 2014 american airlines vice president of planning vasu raja said the reality is that we just don't funnel all of our traffic into one hub referencing emirates and their dubai hub we operate out of nine different hubs in the us and because there is no single hub where you can pull 500 people worth of demand every single day and make that work if you could do it then you would do it on a few routes but not enough to go by the 20 or 30 or 40 airplanes you would need to justify to having the infrastructure of an airplane like that lastly looking at united we can see that the a380 just didn't fit into their business model as their preference is to offer as many flights as possible throughout the day instead of one flight a day and fill it up like an a380 we'd rather serve a market with a couple of wide bodies if the demand was there because business passengers certainly like that favoring frequency over a single flight according to the united spokesperson high frequency is the name of the game for imported money-making routes such as new york to london that the mammoth airbus jet simply doesn't work for the airlines network as for the other carriers in the united states such as jetblue frontier alaskan and so forth they had actually all moved onto twin jet engines and didn't have the operations that needed an airbus a380 they were likely not in a place during the aviation market depression following 911 to consider the aircraft well worth half a billion dollars in the early 2000s now for a fun experiment we should consider the question of what market conditions or what reasons that would make a us carrier want or even need an airbus a380 there are a few ways off the top of my head we might have seen an ai 380 be deployed for weekend flights to and from hawaii for holidaymakers trying to escape for the weekend from west coast airports like sfo and much like how ana deploys its airbus a380s to hawaii from tokyo because the flights are not for business customers there isn't really any pressure to leave multiple times a day a single whole day make a flight can suffice once a day in terms of international routes we might have seen the new york to brazil flight with an airbus a380 with a large business market and plenty of demand in good times the link between these two cosmopolitan hubs would have been dominated by an airbus a380 airline either a u.s carrier or perhaps even an attempt from brazil itself a last example might have been the flights from dallas to sydney and melbourne in australia qantas operates an a380 from texas to the country and makes the tidy sum in a video which you can see right here and now this is a market that u.s carriers haven't really been able to take advantage of against their australian air quotes rival any other routes from north america would have simply been replications of routes that we see today with the a380 and these north american carriers would simply use their a380s as a competitive advantage over their rivals we wouldn't really see the a380 used for domestic flights much like we never see the o380 used for domestic flights in australia france or the united kingdom and of course this is all definitely a fantasy scenario and never came to be when the airbus a380 arrived the market was slowly changing with u.s carriers slowly falling out of love with big aircraft like the boeing 747 if boeing a homegrown u.s enterprise couldn't get their carriers to buy the 747 then airbus had less hope than ever with its own airbus a380 and this is actually a sign of the future the us carriers can't really see themselves booking down for an aircraft seating over 400 passengers let alone up to 600 or even 800 in an all-economy configuration all for different reasons the result is the same no airbus a380 and no large aircraft anymore this includes the new boeing triple 7x which actually could very well be seen as the next large jumbo jet aircraft after the boeing 747 and airbus a380 in the marketplace with its large folding wings and high passenger capacity however like those planes no us carrier has ordered the triple 7x if you think about it it's actually a rather shocking development that an airline in boeing's bread and butter market area has yet to order the new jumbo jet aircraft so far the largest orders that have come from this area with united airlines has been the boeing 787-10 with 10 aircraft on its future fleet plan the same fate could also be said of airbus with the airbus a350-1000 the spiritual successor to the airbus a380 which does not have any deployment by any of the big three carriers in north america latam in south america does have a few airbus a350-1000s on order and they might find their way to delta through a complicated partnership much like the earlier airbus a350-900s but as this carrier went bankrupt this year it's more likely that these planes will go to qatar instead and without that rich north american market snapping up large aircraft we have seen the airbus a321 xlr and boeing 787 come to dominate and it is unlikely that any manufacturer be it boeing airbus or anything from the far east will ever consider a large aircraft again bringing an end to the jumbo jet craze which for myself personally is a real shame now you face a choice will you watch a story about the airbus small plane problem or would you like to check out the boeing sonic cruiser story an aircraft designed by boeing to be totally completely different as a competitive edge against the a380 click to choose and i'll see you in the next video and before we go today i would like to do a special shout out to my patreon specifically laura sanborn who has joined our community and i thank you so much for supporting the channel have a great day [Music]

Channel: Found And Explained

Views: 958,985

Keywords: a380, why american airlines doesn't have an a380, american airlines a380, united a380, delta a380, jetblue a380, qantas a380, frontier a380, breeze a380, why no a380s in usa, usa a380, airbus a380, a380 orders, emirates a380, airbus a380 failure, us airlines a380, is the a380 a failure?, a380 cost, the future of the a380, why dont american airlines order the a380, should american airlines order the a380, a380 cancelled, 747 vs a380, is the a380 dead?, a380 future

Id: 9-h64V-H57U

Length: 15min 47sec (947 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2020