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
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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
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