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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

What I don’t get is that traffic will only increase. In many large cities you just can’t really expand airports. So even direct links using the B787 and A350 will become saturated at one point. So I would expect we will need jumbojets again in the future.

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well part of your statement applies to why jumbos don't work, you have to expand airports to support them, in particular you cannot have as many gates servicing them compared to other planes within the same space.

Plus besides the exterior space needed for the gate the interior space for handling so many people loading and offloading is the equivalent to two or more planes.

Even Boeing recently went to folding wing tips to fit their newest super efficient designs into existing gate setups.

The 777 design included the ability to support folding wingtips as an option. They put it in at a customer’s request (American IIRC) and then never used it.

Pretty sure they haven't released the folding wings yet. First flight is 2019Q2. First delivery 2020. 326 on order.

So the 777x is the one you are talking about and it will come standard with folding wingtips, but the original 777 had an option for folding wingtips and no one ordered them.

I am not sure if Boeing had it developed and never used it, or no one ordered it so they never developed it.

Notably, the folding tips on the 777x get the wingspan down to the original 777 span.

Theyre in the middle of building what I think was the first 777x. We saw it in the Everett factory last Friday.

The new 777X models all have folding wingtips. It's part of the standard design, not an option.

You can also fly more direct routes. Not everyone flying in to LHR wants to go to London, far from it in fact. So if airlines would service more direct routes that would decrease traffic on busy airports.

Asia. China's aviation industry had hockey-stick style growth since 1990, and is expected to overtake US volume by 2022 (ignoring economic peril): http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2017/04/17/airline-industry/ch...

India as well. I wonder what Boeing/Airbus thinks of domestic airline demands in these two countries.

It seems like China uses the higher capacity 777 for point to point travel, the way the United States uses the 737.

And this is why I think Boeing is hitting it on the nose again with it's 797 project. A bigger plane optimized for shorter ranges. Those 10 times a day flights between city X and city Y currently being done with a 737 will turn into five flights a day with a 797. Bingo you've got 5 slots back.

But if you increase the number of passengers flying, you also have to increase the capacity of your terminals. That's the issue I think the OP was suggesting: if an airport can't expand due to limited space, how does it handle more passengers in its terminals? The answer is obviously more efficient security and loading practices to reduce the amount of time people are waiting for their flight, but if anything that seems to be going the opposite direction

Space for people isn't that big of an issue because the terminal takes up a small part of the airport and they can always build up.

Isn't the B797 a small plane for long distances rather? It's a 2-3-2 configuration vs 3-3-3 for a B787 or A350.

Yeah, it seems likely to be a mid-capacity, mid-range 757 replacement.

Not to worry, they'll make a 3-3-2 configuration for the American market.

It's twin aisle 7 abreast, sitting in between the 737 and 787 in terms of pax capacity, with no cargo capacity, that will be lighter overall, and optimized for ranges under 4,000 or 4,500 miles depending on source. So a "sorta" replacement for the 757 and 767 with much better economics. And designed just as a people carrier. So expect to see it operated on high volume intra-Asia routes, and things like coast to coast or high volume intra-US and intra-EMEA routes. It'll also take some of the transatlantic market (e.g. anything served by a 757 today).

Operating planes designed for spanning the globe (777, 787, 350, etc) over shorter distances (<4,000 miles) just to get the extra seats becomes much less economical due to the weight of those planes and the wasted space on cargo capacity that can't be filled on the shorter routes.

Except that the frequency of those flights matters on shorthauls.

Delta/AA/B6/UA fly virtually hourly shuttle flights from NYC to BOS, DC, ORD, LAX because business travellers want choice of departure and arrival - not because they don't have bigger planes.

Taking 10 daily flights and turning it into 5 isn't optimal from a passenger perspective on business routes where it means I have 2 hours to kill because my meeting is timed wrong.

It also means if my meeting ends early, I have a chance on hopping on an earlier flight.

It also matters because of flight connections.

A high frequency mainline flight + a low frequency regional leg = You can get a short/optimal connection time with at least one of those mainline flight choices.

But if both flights are low frequency, you wind up with a lot of connections hitting unappealing layover times that drive business to the competitor with a shorter layover.

Well run the calculation the other way. It's 2050 and the passenger volume between NYC to BOS has doubled[1], but the number of runways or slots in NYC hasn't doubled (since it can't), how do they increase capacity of their shuttles without more runways to fly more 737s? A: Switch some of those hourly shuttles to a bigger plane.

[1] Hopefully in 2050 we'll have rediscovered how to build railways in the USA and actually have HSR from NYC to BOS making this example a bad one.

That was one of the big motivations for the California High Speed rail. Take a bunch of the short haul load off the airports.

It's disheartening both that Gov Newsom wants to kill it and how ecstatic people are about that. The 'can't do' culture is very strong in the US.

not all planes are full. Even with current capacity the traffic in number of people will increase. Additionally airports dont have to expand, they can optimize for more frequent flights and also extend their operating hours. There are airports that close at night but some which operate pretty much around the clock.

The airports that have problems expanding (because ten thousands of people live in close vicinity) also will have problems opening at might (because millions of people live underneath the flight paths).

Even Heathrow and Frankfurt, with famously strong opposition against new runways, have managed to get new runways approved but not to extend hours into the night.

Heathrow expansion is far from a sure thing. It may have been "approved" by the government, but many legal and financial challenges remain. Not to mention ethical and environmental ones!

> also will have problems opening at might (because millions of people live underneath the flight paths).

Surely it's not the people that live there but the wealth and political clout of said people.

Personally I don't mind the sound of aircraft or trains.

Or just more small planes. Or new, hyperlocal airports.

Or maybe use high speed trains for the shorter distances, freeing up more space for long distance flights.

To be honest it wouldn't be a problem to have airports far away from city centres if they are really fast trains to the city centre. But in London for instance, all express trains to airports are express only in name.

While not really that fast, I used to love Heathrow Express when you could check your luggage at Paddington and step on knowing you didn't need to deal with checking your luggage at Heathrow.

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