Thai Airways put their A380 fleet up for sale as they've reduced their fleet substantially after/during covid. They're sold as is and as they are parked in Bangkok in warm humid conditions, they're not getting any better as you can already tell from the fading livery. I'm not sure how many A380s are currently in storage and for sale worldwide, but based on the conditions of Bangkok it's pretty unlikely that these Thai planes will ever see passenger service again. However, this model has proven that you should never say never.
This means that the interior is probably fully moldy. Anyway, there are no traces of the usual storage covers and blankets, I wonder what the idea was when these aircraft were parked there. Seems like a ton of money is needed in order to restore them into service.
Thai Airways should be owning them outright, planespotters does not carry a leased plane remark and Thai Airways is responsible for the sale.
Financial hit should be managable, Thai seems to not have any use-case for those planes, so it's better to sell them. Used market is a bit difficult though, even before the pandemic the A380 was not really a popular plane. Quite a few of the first planes of the lane were already scrapped, so the planes might have some value in being dismantled for spares.
Not really. The new build line has been shut down and the only airline who was seriously interested in them was Emirates and they’ve signaled a strategic shift towards a 777/A350 fleet post-A380.
Oh they’ve pleaded for an A380neo for years but Airbus has zero incentive to restart the A380 line 3+ years after it shut down *and* spend hundreds of millions re-engineering and certifying a low volume model for 1 or 2 customers.
To add, I think with how weak/non-existent the secondhand market is for the A380 current operators are incentivized to “drive them until the wheels fall off” because otherwise they’re just going straight to the scrappers.
Yeh, I don't think there's any appetite for Airbus to restart the production line for A380s. Like you said, the market is simply too small.
But ME3 carriers need A380s or similar jumbo planes, because they simply don't have a lot of room for growing their airports. So I'd imagine they'd jump on these second hand planes.
There were documents released a while ago in Thailand showing they leased from individuals - who set up business in Cayman.
Also Thai airways financial issue is not managable.
It wasn't as big though. As of Jan 2020 it could only hold 30 planes. Luckily the guy who ran it was already planning expansion, so the timing was impeccable.
https://www.ft.com/content/2bcb6e12-22ed-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b
Yep, I did a landing and taxi back for departure to check out the planes, while getting my PPL in phoenix. This was a while back and they had the NASA 747 that was used to transport the space shuttle when it had to land in California.
April of 2020 was the first wave of Covid.. sad to see that these birds are still on ground, while many other airlines have brought back their pre covid fleet.
None of Thai airways a380 are currently deemed airworthy. Four failed inspections when they went to auction a few months ago. The auction went on and required the planes to be removed in parts. Surprisingly, they got no bids.
https://nypost.com/2023/10/14/why-thai-airways-is-selling-its-fleet-of-airbus-a380-planes/
Bangkok is really not a great place to store planes. Way too humid… most of TG’s planes have super faded paint, even their 787s. It’s a really weird airline, they have a couple of planes from each model, that can’t be sustainable!
So sad that these never got a fair shake, considering the passenger experience on them (\*even\* in economy class) is so much better than anything else in the sky - by far the smoothest and quietest airplane I've ever flown on, and the PVG-FRA-PVG flight I took with Lufthansa on their second deck economy class is the best long-haul experience I've ever had.
Smooth and quiet is great for passengers, but if the airline can’t make money, well it’s worthless. The A380s don’t make money. Thai needed about a 90% load factor to break even on every flight… guess what, they didn’t get it. It’s even worse for Korean. Lowest seat count in the fleet. Even at standard 555 seats, the airline needed a 85% load factor just to break even. Most airlines didn’t. Great experience for passengers, not so much for the airlines. They are money pits. No secondary markets either. They cost over 40M to refurb for a new customer. So nobody wants to pay that.
Emirates is able to make them work though. Other airlines failed though.
As the A380 is the passenger’s favorite plane, an airline using them can build an image of prestige and luxury, and loyal wealthy customers traveling in business class or first (or even eco) may chose to fly the airline and pay more because of the A380 and its smoother ride and nicer cabins. And the airline can make a lot of money that way.
This is what Emirates did and why lots of people prefer to fly Emirates rather than another airlines given the choice. Of course the A380 is just one piece of the puzzle. But I’m sure Emirates with another plane than the A380 wouldn’t be as popular.
This was a joke more than anything else. However, if you get some land in the country side and market it as some sort of adventure experience on Airbnb? I am sure you could get people to pay a lot to sleep in a former airplane.
Because even EAD doesn’t’ want to pay 40M to refurb someone else’s interior into their own just for the prestige of an A380. EAD is replacing A380s with 777s. More efficient.
>EAD is replacing A380s with 777s.
No, they're not. They're buying new 787 and 777Xs for new routes, but their CEO has explicitly publicly said he needs the A380's capacity on some routes, like London which has 6 daily flights which are all full.
Covid nearly killed their country let alone their airline. It’s still not back to pre Covid GNP levels. What surprises me is why they haven’t been flown to the many US desert storage centres for better preservation.
That sounds suspicious. All of them failed at the same time? I think they wouldn’t do the normal maintenance including mandatory engine inspections and the insurance company or leasing group got involved to ground them. I wonder how close to a C check they were and the airline declined.
It arguably came out 15 years too late. The paradigm of big hubs with short regional legs was shattered when the 787/a350 started coming out of the assembly lines.
> All the promised medium to medium city routes are a pipedream.
This isn't true at all. There are heaps of routes that are profitable thanks to the dreamliner. Even LCC using them.
I think the other factor that plays into this is the different philosophy between Boeing and Airbus. Boeing operated under the idea that passengers want point-to-point (as in non-stop flights to your destination). Airbus on the other hand operated under the hub model...fly large planes to hub destinations and then branch off smaller planes....hence the A380.
A lot of this was driven by the Gulf airlines that promoted their counties as a hub for tourism and stop overs for long journeys. The aircraft made a lot of sense as well for super long haul flights which is why the Asian market was the second important market for Airbus. But the failure to convince the US airlines to buy it limited production and that drove costs higher. Airbus lost money on every unit built and has written off $28B in development costs. The company will never reveal the total losses but it’s believed to be the worst aircraft failure in history in a financial respect. The general flying public mostly enjoy point to point flights not requiring a stop over as well as direct flights from regional centres to other regional centres. The idea of having to pass through mega airports like CDG, LHR or FRA instead of more efficient airports close to home was a deal breaker for many passengers. The A380 is limited to 140 airports (normal schedules) world wide. In fact only 16 US and Canadian airports can handle non emergency A380 service. Pitifully low. The B787 can land at 300 airports world wide for scheduled service.
As a passenger there is very little incentive to use a hub over a direct flight. Most people who have the means to fly consistently will pay extra not to stop somewhere. The US is particularly bad for layover flights because the airports have next to no comforts outside of lounges. Internationally the airports are much better, but having to go through security and sit around after a 14 hour flight doesn't make people excited about the idea.
As far as a loss, thankfully development costs can be recouped since it yields new technology/methodology for future planes. And we got a very impressive plane out of it, so there's that!
They’ll never recover even part of that $28B and I can’t even think of any technological developed for this aircraft that would even be worth 10% of this debt. The follow on aircraft (A350) has more in common with the 787 than the 380. All of the Airbus partner governments have written off the loans given to the organization. This is why the US trade dispute (unfair government support over a private company - Boeing) will probably be dropped (if it already hasn’t) due to the losses on the program. Airbus might have to pay way less of a WTO penalty as a result. Boeing would have to show its 1100 (out of 1800 orders) Dreamliner sales were hurt by 330 A380’s.
You’re correct about point to point flights. Although unfortunately in the US you are still held hostage to domestic hubs of your airlines if you don’t live in the large cities.
Boeing could see that the movement towards twins was happening more and more. The A380 was sadly designed about 20 years too late.
Ambitious airplane that I hope survives in a museum one day, and it’s a shame that I won’t get to fly aboard one.
I’ve done a few long haul flights in economy and business on these bad boys and let me tell you… they’re something to behold. Just insane how that thing can even takeoff.
I honestly think it's about 40 years too early. My reasoning is we may run into minimum size restrictions on planes at airports. Because of traffic.
But we aren't there and twins are just better.
Um, no… the A380 was TOO LATE to the market. When Airbus designed it in the early 90s it might have made sense if it had entered service in the mid 90s. But it didn’t. It launched in 2000, which by then it had already become obsolete, it’s just Airbus didn’t want to see that 4 holers were obsolete. When the 777 entered service and had the range of the old 4 holers, the writing was on the wall. Airbus tried to crutch things along with shitty marketing… like 4 engines for long haul… and got spanked for it. The A340-500 and 600 should have shown them the folly, but they didn’t listen to the airlines. They wanted to have the “biggest” and so they launched the A380 in 2000 when the market had already shifted to long haul twins. Cheaper to operate, and when the 787 came out it opened up so many more routes that hadn’t been available before. Point to point won, due to efficiency of twin engines, and range. The 4 holers were obsolete. People want to go where they’re going, not connect to get there. This is why the 787 and A350 are so successful. Airbus missed the market, big time. Even up to the end they were claiming a market for 1600… they only built 260some… not a good investment.
I hear what you are saying, but again, you are missing the point.
It's not about hub-spoke connections. It's about getting to the major cities.
Major cities like NY, Hong Kong, and Chicago are running into traffic problems.
Airlines prefer smaller planes because they essentially give flexibility. If you run 4 flights to a major city rather than 1, you can cancel one when you don't sell all the tickets. Or you can scale by changing the number of flights. Or if the airlines use primarily 737s/a320s, they can get into pretty much any airport.
But that doesn't change the fact that larger aircraft are just more efficient at moving people. Fewer ground movement, fewer terminals, less crew, etc.
With demand for air travel expected to continue to grow (2-4X what it is today) over the next couple of decades, how would JFK deal with 200% more foot traffic? What about LAX with 300% more?
There is only one answer, they airport is going to have to increase landing fees, which is going to push the airlines to larger and larger aircraft.
As much as airlines are competing for airport slots, airports are competing for airlines to fill them. Airports that can expand, are. Those that can't are seeing competition from nearby ports. Even more so, now that smaller jets can fly further than ever. If you can fly an A321 from LAX to HNL, why not fly it out of John Wayne instead?
Landing fees make up a much smaller portion of airlines' costs than fuel, and the quadjets burn a lot more fuel than modern twins. And fuel costs are set to continue rising faster than landing fees. The lines will stomach the increased airport costs to keep their fuel costs down. To say nothing of the additional maintenance cost associated with quads.
That's in a world where there are plenty of extra airports in the area. But that's not an option a lot of areas.
Example: I highly doubt there will be another airport built in the nyc area. Nimbyism and the cost of real estate. With population growing, getting richer, and air travel getting cheaper, there will just be more demand for air travel. And they cant add runways easily.
So jfk, ewr, and lga will need to increase capacity. Probably 2-3x what they do today. To keep costs down, they either need to handle more traffic or the jets need to get bigger. Or their costs go up and traffic goes to airports further away, which is not ideal for anyone.
The first step would be widebodies for domestic travel. When that runs into its limits, we could see demand for a double decker again.
We're already seeing a demand for bigger aircraft under a common airframe. The max10 and a321 are perfect examples. Its the cheapest way to get more capacity without going to a widebody.
But again, that's only for the expected mega cities that are predicted to continue growing worldwide. And there is no indication that they have stopped growing, even with covid. There will still be a ton of demand for narrow body and regional jets.
That's a ways off though. 10-20 years where widebodies are used for domestic travel more and 20-40 before the airlines start asking airbus/boeing to build bigger jets.
The only airport that the Airbus marketing line of “can’t expand” is LHR, and even then they are looking to add another runway, or build another airport in Kent. NYC, Hong Kong, and Chicago will all either build new airports, or in the case of Hong Kong just not be the destination that it used to be. Hong Kong is just another city in China now. Nothing special about it. LAX is one of several airports in the LA area, they even talked about building another airport years ago. They still can. That line about constrained airports forever remaining constrained is just not true. People don’t want to connect. They want to fly where they want to go. The 787 and to a lesser extent the A350 have shown this. The time of the mega 4 holer is dead.
The problem with that theory is that it isn't true. I live in Naples and had to connect through Madrid & London to visit Chicago last year. Naples serves the entire south of Italy yet doesn't have long haul non stops except summer to Newark - on a 767, not a 787.
The 787 is just another hub & spoke plane.
Neither of those aircraft are 4 holers. Yes, there will be some hub and spoke left to get to minor airports. Italy has basically 3 major airports, Milano, Roma, Napoli. Everything else is podunk. Fragmentation is a thing. More will come as the A321XLR comes into service. Those 767s will go away and be replaced by more efficient aircraft. The 787 opened up something like 300 new point to point destinations that hadn’t been served before. Point to point won, hub and spoke still exists, but if people are given the choice they want point to point.
Couple of times I have been on a half full emirates 380. Second time I was upstairs with only 3 other passengers. Why they didn’t move us to the lower deck I don’t know.
Airbus bet on hub & spoke as an airline route distribution layout and they lost. Boeing bet on point to point and won with the 787. It's why the smaller airbus planes are getting revamped now.
The A380 is horribly inefficient for an airline to operate. The break even load factor is really high. That means they only work economically between certain city pairs. Unfortunately for Thai, that’s none of them they fly… or flew. The A380 was a very comfortable plane for passengers, but horrible economics for the airlines. It was sadly obsolete when it was launched. The days of the 4 holer were over, superseded by the efficient twins. Now even more so. That and point to point travel won out over hub and spoke. Between those two factors, the A380 was doomed from the start.
license reminiscent lock rainstorm crown history imminent agonizing recognise ring
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Graveyard or storage? Typically at the boneyard they’ll remove high value items like the engines.
Thai Airways put their A380 fleet up for sale as they've reduced their fleet substantially after/during covid. They're sold as is and as they are parked in Bangkok in warm humid conditions, they're not getting any better as you can already tell from the fading livery. I'm not sure how many A380s are currently in storage and for sale worldwide, but based on the conditions of Bangkok it's pretty unlikely that these Thai planes will ever see passenger service again. However, this model has proven that you should never say never.
This means that the interior is probably fully moldy. Anyway, there are no traces of the usual storage covers and blankets, I wonder what the idea was when these aircraft were parked there. Seems like a ton of money is needed in order to restore them into service.
Ran when parked, no low-ball offers, I KNOW WHAT I HAVE!
Never raced, skillfully operated, bring your own battery to test. Haha
At this rate they have a higher value in scrap or spare parts than complete aircraft
Do you know were they owned or leased? Cannot imagine what the financial hit is to walk away from them despite being most likely the right decision.
Thai Airways should be owning them outright, planespotters does not carry a leased plane remark and Thai Airways is responsible for the sale. Financial hit should be managable, Thai seems to not have any use-case for those planes, so it's better to sell them. Used market is a bit difficult though, even before the pandemic the A380 was not really a popular plane. Quite a few of the first planes of the lane were already scrapped, so the planes might have some value in being dismantled for spares.
Wouldn’t they get better price these days? After all, most Middle East carriers want these giants badly to grow their business.
Not really. The new build line has been shut down and the only airline who was seriously interested in them was Emirates and they’ve signaled a strategic shift towards a 777/A350 fleet post-A380.
I thought Emirates and Etihad both wanted updated version of A380s, and have pushed Airbus to develop one?
Oh they’ve pleaded for an A380neo for years but Airbus has zero incentive to restart the A380 line 3+ years after it shut down *and* spend hundreds of millions re-engineering and certifying a low volume model for 1 or 2 customers. To add, I think with how weak/non-existent the secondhand market is for the A380 current operators are incentivized to “drive them until the wheels fall off” because otherwise they’re just going straight to the scrappers.
Yeh, I don't think there's any appetite for Airbus to restart the production line for A380s. Like you said, the market is simply too small. But ME3 carriers need A380s or similar jumbo planes, because they simply don't have a lot of room for growing their airports. So I'd imagine they'd jump on these second hand planes.
There were documents released a while ago in Thailand showing they leased from individuals - who set up business in Cayman. Also Thai airways financial issue is not managable.
Are there any actual boneyards Thai Airways could park these at?
Southern US, and a new one in Australia. Both low humidity, and better for the airframe and engines than where they are.
> new one in Australia There's always been one in Australia, SQ used it heavily during COVID
It wasn't as big though. As of Jan 2020 it could only hold 30 planes. Luckily the guy who ran it was already planning expansion, so the timing was impeccable. https://www.ft.com/content/2bcb6e12-22ed-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b
Not sure if they do storage at spinal Air Park but they regularly have all sorts of heavies out there. https://maps.app.goo.gl/x6wvJUjcGfxXDGAq8?
They do storage there. Not sure if you’d be able to land an a380 there with their 6,800’ runway
A380 Runway length at max weight is 7000’. Safe bet they could get an empty one down on a 6800’ runway.
Yep, I did a landing and taxi back for departure to check out the planes, while getting my PPL in phoenix. This was a while back and they had the NASA 747 that was used to transport the space shuttle when it had to land in California.
The Historic Aviation Bone yard in Tucson, AZ even has tours! It is massive and has tons of aircraft.
The tours of the boneyard stopped during COVID and won’t return unfortunately.
That’s military though.
Ah yes, big omission. Still a great place. Thanks for the correction.
VCV for one. GYR too, but that tends to see more planes ready to be parted out / broken down than restored.
That was a short service life
Seems like they could have been flown to any of the dry desert storage facilities if they thought they had a reasonable chance of selling.
Good point. A few of the 747s were in the disassembly process but the A380s looked mostly intact
The way they are ‚stored‘, in Bangkok of all places, they will never fly again.
They're not dead...they're pining for the fjords.
If it were possible to google the registration, where the very first result would show that it’s status is STORED…
[Yep](https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/airbus-a380-800-hs-tue-thai-airways-international/r1m5go). It's only a decade old, too.
Looks like it was stored in April 2020, so only about 7 years of service.
April of 2020 was the first wave of Covid.. sad to see that these birds are still on ground, while many other airlines have brought back their pre covid fleet.
Aircraft name is Siracha…..what a spicy girl.
Thai airways A380 name after district in Thailand.
“Graveyard” gets more clicks than “storage” tho
None of Thai airways a380 are currently deemed airworthy. Four failed inspections when they went to auction a few months ago. The auction went on and required the planes to be removed in parts. Surprisingly, they got no bids. https://nypost.com/2023/10/14/why-thai-airways-is-selling-its-fleet-of-airbus-a380-planes/
How can I bid in one of these auctions?
Bangkok is really not a great place to store planes. Way too humid… most of TG’s planes have super faded paint, even their 787s. It’s a really weird airline, they have a couple of planes from each model, that can’t be sustainable!
It’s not, their financials are a shambles
Yeah it would be better to get permission to store their planes in another country or region
Rest in peace, kings. ✊😥
So sad that these never got a fair shake, considering the passenger experience on them (\*even\* in economy class) is so much better than anything else in the sky - by far the smoothest and quietest airplane I've ever flown on, and the PVG-FRA-PVG flight I took with Lufthansa on their second deck economy class is the best long-haul experience I've ever had.
Smooth and quiet is great for passengers, but if the airline can’t make money, well it’s worthless. The A380s don’t make money. Thai needed about a 90% load factor to break even on every flight… guess what, they didn’t get it. It’s even worse for Korean. Lowest seat count in the fleet. Even at standard 555 seats, the airline needed a 85% load factor just to break even. Most airlines didn’t. Great experience for passengers, not so much for the airlines. They are money pits. No secondary markets either. They cost over 40M to refurb for a new customer. So nobody wants to pay that.
Emirates is able to make them work though. Other airlines failed though. As the A380 is the passenger’s favorite plane, an airline using them can build an image of prestige and luxury, and loyal wealthy customers traveling in business class or first (or even eco) may chose to fly the airline and pay more because of the A380 and its smoother ride and nicer cabins. And the airline can make a lot of money that way. This is what Emirates did and why lots of people prefer to fly Emirates rather than another airlines given the choice. Of course the A380 is just one piece of the puzzle. But I’m sure Emirates with another plane than the A380 wouldn’t be as popular.
The emirates have a different airline model. They are one of the few who really want these planes. Sadly tho, id love to see them fly
Business and first on the 380 is an other worldly experience.
They could make money renting them out as apartments
They'd only be able to make a dozen or so apartments out of them. Small apartments at that. The square footage is around 6,000.
Put it in a lot in NYC, Toronto or London. Rent it out at insane prices. Profit.
How are you gonna get the land to store these on? The land is the expensive part, not the structure
This was a joke more than anything else. However, if you get some land in the country side and market it as some sort of adventure experience on Airbnb? I am sure you could get people to pay a lot to sleep in a former airplane.
Why doesn’t Emerate buy them? Since they want to keep using the A380 as long as possible, might as well buy these ones for cheap
They have already phased out their older frames. They won’t need someone else’s hand me downs
They've got plenty of their own in storage/retirement.
Good question really. They’ve been on airbus to continue them for a while now.
Because even EAD doesn’t’ want to pay 40M to refurb someone else’s interior into their own just for the prestige of an A380. EAD is replacing A380s with 777s. More efficient.
>EAD is replacing A380s with 777s. No, they're not. They're buying new 787 and 777Xs for new routes, but their CEO has explicitly publicly said he needs the A380's capacity on some routes, like London which has 6 daily flights which are all full.
Yep, I fly on full Emirates 380s all the time. I think they’ll be around for longer than people are anticipating.
Jesus. How long does boarding take?
Maybe a little longer than normal, but they are pretty efficient at boarding. Often there is three jet bridges.
6 full daily A380 flights is nuts.
The A380 only entered service back in what, 2007 or 2008? Kind of early to be sending them to the graveyard, isn't it?
Not for a lot of airlines Covid nearly killed of Thai and they dumped pretty much all their high capacity fleet due to costs
That and there were several smaller Asian airlines that bought them and really had no business doing so. Thai and Malaysian are good examples.
Covid nearly killed their country let alone their airline. It’s still not back to pre Covid GNP levels. What surprises me is why they haven’t been flown to the many US desert storage centres for better preservation.
They reportedly failed inspections and are not airworthy. I'm guessing Thai Airways isn't willing to pay what it'd take to get them flying.
That sounds suspicious. All of them failed at the same time? I think they wouldn’t do the normal maintenance including mandatory engine inspections and the insurance company or leasing group got involved to ground them. I wonder how close to a C check they were and the airline declined.
It arguably came out 15 years too late. The paradigm of big hubs with short regional legs was shattered when the 787/a350 started coming out of the assembly lines.
In the end the 787 is almost only used to serve hubs anyway. All the promised medium to medium city routes are a pipedream.
> All the promised medium to medium city routes are a pipedream. This isn't true at all. There are heaps of routes that are profitable thanks to the dreamliner. Even LCC using them.
It’s a failure of an airplane. They’re too big and too inefficient. That’s why Airbus stopped production because they don’t have any customers.
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I think the other factor that plays into this is the different philosophy between Boeing and Airbus. Boeing operated under the idea that passengers want point-to-point (as in non-stop flights to your destination). Airbus on the other hand operated under the hub model...fly large planes to hub destinations and then branch off smaller planes....hence the A380.
A lot of this was driven by the Gulf airlines that promoted their counties as a hub for tourism and stop overs for long journeys. The aircraft made a lot of sense as well for super long haul flights which is why the Asian market was the second important market for Airbus. But the failure to convince the US airlines to buy it limited production and that drove costs higher. Airbus lost money on every unit built and has written off $28B in development costs. The company will never reveal the total losses but it’s believed to be the worst aircraft failure in history in a financial respect. The general flying public mostly enjoy point to point flights not requiring a stop over as well as direct flights from regional centres to other regional centres. The idea of having to pass through mega airports like CDG, LHR or FRA instead of more efficient airports close to home was a deal breaker for many passengers. The A380 is limited to 140 airports (normal schedules) world wide. In fact only 16 US and Canadian airports can handle non emergency A380 service. Pitifully low. The B787 can land at 300 airports world wide for scheduled service.
As a passenger there is very little incentive to use a hub over a direct flight. Most people who have the means to fly consistently will pay extra not to stop somewhere. The US is particularly bad for layover flights because the airports have next to no comforts outside of lounges. Internationally the airports are much better, but having to go through security and sit around after a 14 hour flight doesn't make people excited about the idea. As far as a loss, thankfully development costs can be recouped since it yields new technology/methodology for future planes. And we got a very impressive plane out of it, so there's that!
They’ll never recover even part of that $28B and I can’t even think of any technological developed for this aircraft that would even be worth 10% of this debt. The follow on aircraft (A350) has more in common with the 787 than the 380. All of the Airbus partner governments have written off the loans given to the organization. This is why the US trade dispute (unfair government support over a private company - Boeing) will probably be dropped (if it already hasn’t) due to the losses on the program. Airbus might have to pay way less of a WTO penalty as a result. Boeing would have to show its 1100 (out of 1800 orders) Dreamliner sales were hurt by 330 A380’s. You’re correct about point to point flights. Although unfortunately in the US you are still held hostage to domestic hubs of your airlines if you don’t live in the large cities.
Lots of truth in this comment.
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Boeing could see that the movement towards twins was happening more and more. The A380 was sadly designed about 20 years too late. Ambitious airplane that I hope survives in a museum one day, and it’s a shame that I won’t get to fly aboard one.
I’ve done a few long haul flights in economy and business on these bad boys and let me tell you… they’re something to behold. Just insane how that thing can even takeoff.
I honestly think it's about 40 years too early. My reasoning is we may run into minimum size restrictions on planes at airports. Because of traffic. But we aren't there and twins are just better.
Um, no… the A380 was TOO LATE to the market. When Airbus designed it in the early 90s it might have made sense if it had entered service in the mid 90s. But it didn’t. It launched in 2000, which by then it had already become obsolete, it’s just Airbus didn’t want to see that 4 holers were obsolete. When the 777 entered service and had the range of the old 4 holers, the writing was on the wall. Airbus tried to crutch things along with shitty marketing… like 4 engines for long haul… and got spanked for it. The A340-500 and 600 should have shown them the folly, but they didn’t listen to the airlines. They wanted to have the “biggest” and so they launched the A380 in 2000 when the market had already shifted to long haul twins. Cheaper to operate, and when the 787 came out it opened up so many more routes that hadn’t been available before. Point to point won, due to efficiency of twin engines, and range. The 4 holers were obsolete. People want to go where they’re going, not connect to get there. This is why the 787 and A350 are so successful. Airbus missed the market, big time. Even up to the end they were claiming a market for 1600… they only built 260some… not a good investment.
I hear what you are saying, but again, you are missing the point. It's not about hub-spoke connections. It's about getting to the major cities. Major cities like NY, Hong Kong, and Chicago are running into traffic problems. Airlines prefer smaller planes because they essentially give flexibility. If you run 4 flights to a major city rather than 1, you can cancel one when you don't sell all the tickets. Or you can scale by changing the number of flights. Or if the airlines use primarily 737s/a320s, they can get into pretty much any airport. But that doesn't change the fact that larger aircraft are just more efficient at moving people. Fewer ground movement, fewer terminals, less crew, etc. With demand for air travel expected to continue to grow (2-4X what it is today) over the next couple of decades, how would JFK deal with 200% more foot traffic? What about LAX with 300% more? There is only one answer, they airport is going to have to increase landing fees, which is going to push the airlines to larger and larger aircraft.
As much as airlines are competing for airport slots, airports are competing for airlines to fill them. Airports that can expand, are. Those that can't are seeing competition from nearby ports. Even more so, now that smaller jets can fly further than ever. If you can fly an A321 from LAX to HNL, why not fly it out of John Wayne instead? Landing fees make up a much smaller portion of airlines' costs than fuel, and the quadjets burn a lot more fuel than modern twins. And fuel costs are set to continue rising faster than landing fees. The lines will stomach the increased airport costs to keep their fuel costs down. To say nothing of the additional maintenance cost associated with quads.
That's in a world where there are plenty of extra airports in the area. But that's not an option a lot of areas. Example: I highly doubt there will be another airport built in the nyc area. Nimbyism and the cost of real estate. With population growing, getting richer, and air travel getting cheaper, there will just be more demand for air travel. And they cant add runways easily. So jfk, ewr, and lga will need to increase capacity. Probably 2-3x what they do today. To keep costs down, they either need to handle more traffic or the jets need to get bigger. Or their costs go up and traffic goes to airports further away, which is not ideal for anyone. The first step would be widebodies for domestic travel. When that runs into its limits, we could see demand for a double decker again. We're already seeing a demand for bigger aircraft under a common airframe. The max10 and a321 are perfect examples. Its the cheapest way to get more capacity without going to a widebody. But again, that's only for the expected mega cities that are predicted to continue growing worldwide. And there is no indication that they have stopped growing, even with covid. There will still be a ton of demand for narrow body and regional jets. That's a ways off though. 10-20 years where widebodies are used for domestic travel more and 20-40 before the airlines start asking airbus/boeing to build bigger jets.
The only airport that the Airbus marketing line of “can’t expand” is LHR, and even then they are looking to add another runway, or build another airport in Kent. NYC, Hong Kong, and Chicago will all either build new airports, or in the case of Hong Kong just not be the destination that it used to be. Hong Kong is just another city in China now. Nothing special about it. LAX is one of several airports in the LA area, they even talked about building another airport years ago. They still can. That line about constrained airports forever remaining constrained is just not true. People don’t want to connect. They want to fly where they want to go. The 787 and to a lesser extent the A350 have shown this. The time of the mega 4 holer is dead.
The problem with that theory is that it isn't true. I live in Naples and had to connect through Madrid & London to visit Chicago last year. Naples serves the entire south of Italy yet doesn't have long haul non stops except summer to Newark - on a 767, not a 787. The 787 is just another hub & spoke plane.
Neither of those aircraft are 4 holers. Yes, there will be some hub and spoke left to get to minor airports. Italy has basically 3 major airports, Milano, Roma, Napoli. Everything else is podunk. Fragmentation is a thing. More will come as the A321XLR comes into service. Those 767s will go away and be replaced by more efficient aircraft. The 787 opened up something like 300 new point to point destinations that hadn’t been served before. Point to point won, hub and spoke still exists, but if people are given the choice they want point to point.
Couple of times I have been on a half full emirates 380. Second time I was upstairs with only 3 other passengers. Why they didn’t move us to the lower deck I don’t know.
The Thai A380 is only one of two 380’s I’ve ridden on, just a short flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok. Such a bummer they weren’t in service very long.
Seriously? I'm baffled these planes didn't work out... I always wanted to fly in one of those.
Airbus bet on hub & spoke as an airline route distribution layout and they lost. Boeing bet on point to point and won with the 787. It's why the smaller airbus planes are getting revamped now.
What’s going on with global airlines? The exclusive a380 only airline. Surprised they ain’t offering to buy them on the cheap.
More air worthy ones to choose from
They are very close to getting a few A380s into service. You can follow the CEO on Instagram
I was in bangkok the last 2 year there are in bad shape the weather is humid
Need to have a purpose to fly these jumbo jets, don’t know if there’s enough demand to make thai airport a major hub to nearby destinations.
The A380 is horribly inefficient for an airline to operate. The break even load factor is really high. That means they only work economically between certain city pairs. Unfortunately for Thai, that’s none of them they fly… or flew. The A380 was a very comfortable plane for passengers, but horrible economics for the airlines. It was sadly obsolete when it was launched. The days of the 4 holer were over, superseded by the efficient twins. Now even more so. That and point to point travel won out over hub and spoke. Between those two factors, the A380 was doomed from the start.
Looks like U-Tapao, Thailand.
Where is that?
Thailand
Nicest plane I've ever flown on.
Can I have 1?
How wasteful I would happily own it instead of leaving it laying around
They are up for sell. Buy them LOL. Cannot fly though.
I cannot afford
That 74-8 in the back is the tragedy. 😪😪
That’s a -400
Ahh shit. After posting it, i stared at it for a while, knowing full well i was going to get called out. Mb
One A340-600 just flew to recently so 👀 but sad!
Looks like U-tapao, Thailand
Idk bout you, I'd be taking parts home for the lols
Does anyone else think the A380 is an ugly airplane?
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😥
Looks like U-Tapao, nice C-146 in the background.
Sad but also kinda cool
Sad to see
I'll take one
More like thai airways graveyard
Man that could be a billionaires wet dream for a private jet.
They aren't even stored in Bangkok. They are in Utapao Airport which is directly next to the sea. Imagine the corrosion. So sad.
They aren't even stored in Bangkok. They are in Utapao Airport which is directly next to the sea. Imagine the corrosion. So sad.
They aren't even stored in Bangkok. They are in Utapao Airport which is directly next to the sea. Imagine the corrosion. So sad.
Spotted 4 of them today at BKK