On the other hand, more modern plans are so much more efficient. An A350 uses literally half the fuel of an A380, (which itself uses less than a 747).With lower capacity hopefully comes lower demand for air travel - this can only be a good thing.
On the other hand, more modern plans are so much more efficient. An A350 uses literally half the fuel of an A380, (which itself uses less than a 747).With lower capacity hopefully comes lower demand for air travel - this can only be a good thing.
Why is it only a good thing? Lower capacity for air travel means all kinds of travel that is of value to people can't reasonably take place any more. People have relatives and friends that live too far away to make visiting in person by any other means infeasible. People want to go to see places in person that they can't feasibly get to any other way. People have business reasons to make trips that can't feasibly be made any other way. There was a lot of demand pre-COVID for air travel for a reason. The capacity just vanishing is a loss for many.
Maybe. I think we've seen that a lot of those business trips weren't actually necessary as such, and were more about making an expensive signal of commitment.
But in 2019 I think most trips were more about corporate inertia than practical need.
I try to avoid getting too anchored to incidental aspects of the present. One way is to turn those questions around: what about the people with relatives and friends that already live too far away to make travel feasible? What about all the places that people already can't feasibly get to? What about all of the business which already doesn't get done due to travel practicalities?
There will always be more opportunities to open up by cranking the dial a bit further; but we have to strike a balance somewhere due to the costs. It's a shame that so many opportunities are already blocked by travel costs, but there's no point losing sleep over it. Likewise, if the current costs are too great (e.g. environmentally), then the dial should be turned down a little. Many people would be disadvantaged, but they'd just get added to all those already disadvantaged by the current equilibrium. It's not, in itself, a reason to avoid dialing things down. The things which really matter are: the relative numbers of people affected, whether the budget could be made more equitable or prioritised (e.g. charging frequent flyers more, to keep one-off prices lower), etc.
Many aspects of the present are not "incidental", they are based on choices that people made in the past in the context of expectations about the future and what options would reasonably be available to them. A sudden drastic change in the actual options available in the present vs. what options people reasonably expected when they made significant choices in the past (like where to live and where to locate businesses) is going to have a drastic impact on people.
Yes, a new equilibrium will need to be found and we're not just going to go back to the way things were before, but to say that the drastic change that has happened "can only be a good thing", as the post I originally responded to did, ignores the large negative impact of the change on people who made significant choices in the past that they would not have made if the future they had expected then was the same as our actual present now.
The entire video sparks nostalgia and joy
It's way different now in the post-911 aviation world, but on several of those flights the flight attendants keeping tabs on me would take me up to the cockpit at some point during the flight to say hello to the pilots and get a wing pin[2]. And on one occasion I got to spend the majority of the flight in a cockpit jumpseat.
Man, those were fun times. One trip I got pawned onto the maintenance crew afterwards due to the person picking me up being late, and got to drive the vehicle thing that pushes back planes from the gate. As a kid, I think I enjoyed that experience (and the feeling of power over an airplane) more than the jumpseat experience.
[1] https://thepointsguy.com/news/airline-unaccompanied-minor-po...
[2] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-children/1437386-real...
My highlight: At some point, late seventies or early eighties, I got to pull the lever to lower the landing gear! I can imagine that being legal, even then...
Ha! Yea, it's amazing how liberal pilots used to be (at least in relation to kids). As a parent now, I can't fathom the thought process of a pilot trusting a kid (even more so one they don't know) in the cockpit of an in-flight airliner.
But as someone who was able to experience it, I'm forever grateful for those pilots with potentially questionable judgement. The few childhood memories I can recall are vague recollections at best, but those particular memories are so crystalized I still get a sense of elation just recalling the experiences.
Man, even aside from the deprecated hub and spoke model, this just seems too easy an argument against the a380. No wonder it croaked.
To compare across the same airline, SIA long-haul configuration for the A350-900 is 253 pax in 3-class vs 443 in 4-class for the A380, so the A350-900 is carrying 40% fewer people and 1 less class.
Even against the most modern aircraft the A380's fuel consumption per pax per unit distance is likely to be competitive, the problem is filling the thing with people.
You know the seats are at the discretion of the airline, right? There’s no built in A380 first class.
Comparing the number of seats on an Emirates A380 for example is a bit unfair, because the upper deck is just so luxurious. If you remove the cocktail bar, the showers, and just keep standard business cots on the upper deck, you could probably add a good 20-30 seats
That would still be wrong. Most decent First Class cabins these days are on 777s: https://onemileatatime.com/best-first-class/
It's becoming increasingly rare for airlines to configure their planes with first class. However most (possibly all?) A380s were or are configured with first class, making direct comparisons more difficult.
Whether first-class exists on the (10 years older) 777 is neither here nor there.
Just a few weeks ago here on hn there was a discussion about this. Someone claimed the reasons A380 has poorer fuel economy per pax than A350 or B787 are
- older design with less usage of lightweight composites.
- older engine design.
- wing design constrained by need to fit within 80m box (size of airport gate apparently).
- wing design optimized for a lengthened variant (that was never realised).