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A380 flown to disassembly

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A380 flown to disassembly

Old 21st Feb 2020, 20:02
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A380 flown to disassembly

Sad to see a modern and relatively fresh plane being broken up, regardless of the finances.

https://m.independent.ie/life/travel...-38979100.html
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Old 21st Feb 2020, 20:11
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The A380 (and all commercial aircraft) are the children of finance, finance also eats it's young.
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Old 21st Feb 2020, 22:20
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I can remember when the first A380's came into service and although I was not very impressed with the aircraft from the start I'm still surprised that they had such a short commercial life. Seems that 4 engines are just not wanted nowdays.
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Old 21st Feb 2020, 22:34
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Apart from when you have two fail on the same flight.

To an old guy, the life of that 380 seems like infant mortality.
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Old 21st Feb 2020, 23:02
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A380 is simply too big. It is quite difficult to find enough passengers to fill it.
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Old 21st Feb 2020, 23:23
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Airbus completely missed the reason why the 747 was so popular - particularly the 747-400. If you wanted the range of a 747, you needed a 747 - there simply were no viable alternatives until roughly 25 years ago.
Now, the longest range commercial aircraft are all twins, so you don't need to fill up an A380 (or even a 747) to make it viable.
Airbus was also fooled into thinking the 747 was a huge cash cow for Boeing. Yes, Boeing made money on the 747, but no where near the numbers Airbus believed...
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 00:01
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I know the case of the flights across the Atlantic (Air France and KLM). The passengers are obliged to buy round-trip tickets (a one-way has an enormous cost). No refund is possible if you do not come back (which is often my case) because the return ticket is just $2! I noticed also that the planes are always full. So, it is essential for big planes to have all seats occupied.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 00:58
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When they were first announced the concept horrified me: arriving as a passenger at an airport with five or six hundred others, to be dumped into the slow queue funnel at point of entry.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:21
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It’s a pleasant aircraft to be a passenger on and my colleagues say it’s nice to operate. Unfortunately, it's rather heavy at around twice the empty weight of a 777, so is not exactly economical, plus it can’t take anywhere near the amount of freight. There is also a bit of a dearth of suitable alternates in the event of a “land at nearest”. An interesting experiment that proves biggest is not always best...
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:36
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Airbus made a gamble at a time where slots and airport access was an issue and hubs the way out , pushed by airlines like Emirates who did put they money where their mouths were . But it failed.
as to the weight to .pax ratio , remember that the current version flying is the equivalent of the SP version of the 747. The final serie would have carried well over 1000 pax ....
The other reason to develop the 380 was to take Boeing head on and compete with them on all sizes incl the 747, . and beat them on the long run with modern designs , . It that they succeed, and probably . looking at today, beyond their wildest dreams .

That said very sad to see a beautiful modern aircraft being scrapped so young... One was recently donated to the le Bourget air and space museum .. another sign ..
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 10:18
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Originally Posted by ATC Watcher
............... The final serie would have carried well over 1000 pax .... ..
Maybe so, but there is no prospect of major hub airports being designed (ie rebuilt) to manage that. It's bad enough with the volumes being dumped all at once at immigration queues now, to say nothing of 2 - 3 hour waits for baggage. Unless most, if not all, major hub airports start a redesign and rebuild programme now, to come on stream in 20 years time, to cope with an imaginary large aircraft that exists only on its designer's future projects drawing board, if it exists at all, there will be no demand from airlines for anything bigger than the current range of heavy twins. And quite right too; these mega-aircraft are an abomination.

PS remind me of how long it takes to disembark a full A380, from stopping at the gate, through one hole at the front of the aircraft, or two if you're lucky. And then imagine 1,000 passengers doing that. The industry has gone mad; air transport is supposed to be quick and efficient, and here we are, even now, adding up to 3 hours to each end of a long-haul flight. It's madness.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 11:22
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I would of thought it'd be a great Haj aeroplane, 600 plus pilgrims say Jakarta to Saudi?
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 12:41
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Originally Posted by ATC Watcher
Airbus made a gamble at a time where slots and airport access was an issue and hubs the way out , pushed by airlines like Emirates who did put they money where their mouths were . But it failed.
as to the weight to .pax ratio , remember that the current version flying is the equivalent of the SP version of the 747. The final serie would have carried well over 1000 pax ....
The other reason to develop the 380 was to take Boeing head on and compete with them on all sizes incl the 747, . and beat them on the long run with modern designs , . It that they succeed, and probably . looking at today, beyond their wildest dreams .

That said very sad to see a beautiful modern aircraft being scrapped so young... One was recently donated to the le Bourget air and space museum .. another sign ..
Modern, certainly. Beautiful? Not im my books. There, the A380 comes right after the Beluga.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 13:56
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Originally Posted by FullWings
It’s a pleasant aircraft to be a passenger on and my colleagues say it’s nice to operate. Unfortunately, it's rather heavy at around twice the empty weight of a 777, so is not exactly economical, plus it can’t take anywhere near the amount of freight.

The guys on the ramp when it was introduced couldn't see how it was going to make money when you looked at how much extra fuel you had to put on compared with a 777 on the same route and how much less (if any) freight you could load in the belly. When EK made the DXB - LHR route all 380 they also had to put on a 777 freighter to take all the cargo that no longer fitted.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 14:28
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All very sad. Such a great shame it didn’t work out . In my view - as a passenger - a great aeroplane which deserved to do better. But, I acknowledge the economic deficit.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 17:51
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Originally Posted by usbhub
I know the case of the flights across the Atlantic (Air France and KLM). The passengers are obliged to buy round-trip tickets (a one-way has an enormous cost). No refund is possible if you do not come back (which is often my case) because the return ticket is just $2! I noticed also that the planes are always full. So, it is essential for big planes to have all seats occupied.
I'm afraid someone's been telling you porky pies. No refund is possible because you most likely bought a nonrefundable ticket (you wouldn't get a refund if you cancelled before departure either - although you could probably rebook for a fee, which you can do even if you've flown half the ticket) - but the actual fare construction is such that each half is generally half of the ticket cost. The real problem you'd face is that you agreed to fly the itinerary as ticketed, and the airline very likely has the right to charge you more money for the pleasure of not taking your return journey. They mostly don't, but they could. The real reason for these expensive one-ways is that the business travellers who are the primary audience for one-ways have the spare cash to buy such tickets, but they don't want to make them convenient for the cheap passengers who fill the back.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 18:57
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Originally Posted by AviatorDave
Modern, certainly. Beautiful? Not im my books. There, the A380 comes right after the Beluga.
Nah, the Boeing Large Cargo Freighter (LCF - aka 'Dreamlifter') is worse than the A380, maybe even as bad as the Beluga.

Triploss, it's not as common as it used to be, but I've run into cases where a one way ticket was actually more than a round trip. About 25 years ago, I was leaving on an extended overseas assignment, so I was going to drive my car to my parents house in Colorado to store and fly back home. It was cheaper to buy the round trip ticket and leave the second half unused than to buy one-way.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 20:16
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Re whether the A380 is beautiful or not (and personally I think the Buluga is far prettier) an ex colleague of mine pointed out during the taxi at Frankfurt, that the A380 looks like Eric Pickles (UK Politician for the uninitiated) from the front; a fat, round face with all the features in the middle, I totally agree!
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 21:34
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The Skytanic is on its way out. Someone could do research on what was said here during it's development. I remember more than a few voices pointing out it was a case of confusing a desire to be literally the biggest and the best with an actual business plan. Their decentralized approach to manufacturing was once the gold standard in how not to do outsourcing, until Boeing said "hold my beer".
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 21:47
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It's always sad to see a perfectly serviceable aeroplane flown to the breaker's yard.
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