Emirates President: Other Airlines Use A380 Wrong

_Duck Ling ______________________________________________________________________________________________
The A380 would never work on the bulk of BA’s most important routes, LHR-USA. Firstly, because it’s largest markets (ie JFK) are all about frequency.
A BA A380 has 22 Cabin Crew, a 787-8 has 8. So an A380 is almost three times a 787-8 in terms of crewing costs, hotel rooms downroute etc.
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Long haul routes are very time zone limited and mostly in the middle of the day. There is no flights between NYC-LON from 10am to 5pm. If the bulk of the flights are from 5pm to 10pm then size matters. That's how it goes with all long haul routes especially across oceans. Frequency on long haul is a dead end especially for curfew airports. Dubai has no curfew and yet they fly A380 everywhere even taking off at 3am and 4am.

A380 has two less active pilots than 787 and 6 less pilots than A321 on equal number of passengers and pilots are the most paid by far.

Sir Tim, probably my aviation idol, I confess, is absolutely right, but more in the comments regarding facilities.

The A380 heralded bars, swimming pools, yes, showers, etc and the space for them too.

Emirates is the only airlines that has fulfilled these dreams on a plane that can accommodate them, and then fly them with smoothness I have not consistently experienced on any other aeroplane.

MH bemoaned their purchase from day one, at a time when they had the ONLY KUL-LHR non-stop. What a corporate catastrophe! Business was 2-2-2 with flat RECLINE seats only! These tragically poor and outdated design features, as was said by TC, emanated in other carriers too.

Bottom line. the A380 could have been such an enormous success if only the other carriers had the foresight that TC had in believing in it and ensuring that the passenger experience IS different to any other aircraft. In all classes, perhaps especially economy.

The 380 I understand holds more than that number of patents in its construction and It's sad that such innovation on the part of all the contributors to Airbus, Spain for the tail fin, Germany for the avionics, UK for the groundbreaking stir welded wings large enough and light enough for the structure to become airborne, yet small enough to fit the US (Boeing 747) designated "window" of maximum.

Completely agree with almost everything Sir Tim has said and the majority of comments by yourself, Ben.

However, note that BA’s strategy is no more about limiting competition at LHR than AF or LH’s at their respective hubs. For all the talk you see of BA being this unparalleled monopoly, BA and other IAG carriers together only control c.55% of slots at LHR vs. AF/KLM having c.60% at AMS and LH Group holding 69% in FRA and 72%(!) of all MUC slots.

Also, if you look at all London airports rather than just LHR then BA’s slot share is actually nowhere near that level and probably about average for a major global carrier in their capital city, given they have 24% at LGW and not much elsewhere other than much smaller LCY.

I find the industry preoccupation with ultra long haul etc perplexing. I keep hearing its what people want but honestly as a frequent LH flier I'm not so sure. What I do hear repeatedly is that once you fly in an Emirates A380 all other air travel is extremely uncomfortable in comparison. That even a stopover makes the experience worthwhile.

I cant help but feel this is the industry cutting costs, and telling themselves and consumers it's what they want when in reality the thought of being on a small plane for 19 hours, crammed into sub standard, antiquated seating even in business class is the stuff of nightmares for most.

Frequency is great, providing you offer additional comforts in my view. But really it'll just end up with one flight an hour where in economy the average height westerner will have their knees firmly embedded in the seat in front of them because of 'cost efficiency' which is just airline greed put in palatable terms. 8 hours of that is painful, 19 from LHR to Sydney...well...

I think it ultimately boils down to each carrier's business model and market realities.
For sure I agree with Clarke that having a small sub fleet made absolutely no sense. The carriers that did that simply ordered the A380 as a double decker replacement without having a clear vision. For instance, the A380 was not a fit at all for carriers like Malaysian, Thai or even Virgin Atlantic.
That said the industry changed dramatically post 2008. Take an airline like Qantas that operated 747s on its hub and spoke Europe where they used various points in Asia as transit hubs to ferry passengers to Europe in what was a traditionally restricted market. The liberal policies of the government saw an onslaught of capacity which combined with high fuel prices sent Qantas's international business into such a tailspin that at one stage saw it contemplating becoming a regional or domestic carrier.
Hence they scaled down their A380 plans significantly by cancelling orders and pivoted to a premium centric model with smaller planes and were able to turn it around.
Emirates on the other hand built a large scale transit business model with access to some of the most densely populated markets. They used the 380 to exploit these high density markets and leveraged the opportunity to build a powerful brand for themselves around the 380. Well done!
The question is how many others had financial backers with the cash and strategic vision to afford the appetite to take such a huge gamble? Let's not forget the fate of Etihad that attempted a similar business model. And Qatar too isnt exactly taking it.
The reality is that network carriers from developed first world markets cannot cater to the price sensitive markets that Emirates serves as their cost structures cannot sustain it.
A carrier like Air France has union issues and high wages meaning that it simply can't offer the fares that are low enough to fill up an A380.
Qantas is an end of the road carrier again with high cost hubs that through sheer innovation (yes of a different kind to Emirates) has managed to create a premium centric business model for its home market. It now aspires to differentiate itself further through ultra long haul nonstops that bypass hubs. Given its unique geography it can justify making the investments in a segment that would be far too niched for other carriers to compete in. This is perhaps their bold and visionary initiative just like Emirates took with their 380s except that it is right for them- they are creating a relevant proposition for their customers that other carriers wont replicate. For instance I can't see BA or Delta investing into a sub fleet of 777-8xs just to service Sydney from London and New York.
BA and the 380 is probably a grey area. Being hubbed in a slot controlled high demand airport with plenty of premium traffic they could have made the 380 work. Their large fleet of 747s made them an obvious buyer. Yet their lack of follow through post thier initial order is perhaps because they saw the writing on the wall for the 380 early on. They were far less invested into the A380 program compared to Emirates and therefore had no reason to keep a sinking ship afloat. Moreover, they had access to a hub with the highest premium demand in the world hence had the option to drive yield growth. Emirates's growth model was always driven by passenger numbers hence it did not have this option.
To a lesser extent, SIA is in a similar situation and has pretty much followed BA's footsteps.
Ultimately the A380 was far too niched a proposition for most carriers and ironically it is Emirates gigantic fleet of A380s that ultimately dissuaded other potential customers from investing further into the program. With its fully loaded flying palaces hitting cities such as London, Zurich, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Milan, Frankfurt and even Nice often several times a day, there were quite simply limited opportunities for other carriers to operate the aircraft. Ultimately there was demand for 350 or so aircrafts at this time and Emirates chose to operate 60% of them.

I believe that Mr. Clark is trying to save face. If we lived in an alternate universe, possibly the A380 would have been successful. In our universe, it truly comes down to what the market wants.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s Airbus made the decision, to build a plane, to fly huge numbers of people in relatively few planes to major hubs around the world; while Boeing's decision was to make an airplane that was more efficient and cheaper to fly than anything else in the sky – while capable of flying directly to more cities than just the major hubs. Keep in mind, Boeing already had two big planes in service, the 747 and 777 (both are larger than the 787). Boeing clearly picked right. Boeing had 753 orders for Dreamliners before its first flight in 2011.

Airbus and Emirates were reminiscing of a bygone era

Excellent article and Mr. Clark is an unicorn among airline executives to truly appreciate this great airplane. The A380 is without a doubt the best innovation for serving dense gateway hub to hub routes. It was specifically designed to relive capacity congestion at the very large hub airports with limited landing slots and noise abatement curfews in effect or being considered. There have been numerous misrepresentations about the airplanes expensive airfield, gate and ground support requirements when actually the airplane from its onset was designed to operate on existing FAA ADG V, ICAO Index 14 Group E airports. I know, because I was involved from the onset with Airbus re airport compatibility and when the time came to accommodate the airplane at MIA rejected efforts by so called expert consultants to implement unneeded wasteful upgrades to the airfield, gates and terminal. The total investment for A380 accommodation under my watch was $4.5M for PLB's and 400 Htz ground power and the airplane successfully operated from 2008 through this year at MIA.

I don't agree with TC in terms of 'BA should have hundreds of A380's....

BA said from the very beginning that there would only be a few routes that the A380 would work for, for them. Primarily long haul routes where there is increased seasonal demand, or where they can consolidate frequency. For example. LHR-HKG. Prior to the A380 introduction BA had three daily flights. The A380 reduced this to two. The A380 would never work on the bulk of BA's most important routes, LHR-USA. Firstly, because it's largest markets (ie JFK) are all about frequency. A number of US cities see the A380 seasonally - BOS, ORD, IAD, MIA - and others year round - LAX SFO. But BA has three daily flights LHR-LAX. Only one of them is A380 most of the year. Three x A380's would just be excess capacity and overkill.

And there's another good reason why BA don't have more A380's....because airlines like TC's Emirates fly six of them a day into LHR and back to DXB taking a load of BA's potential traffic ex LHR. There's no way most of BA's routes eastwards could sustain a profitable A380 service. It's not just about getting the number of bums on seats but it's also the cost of operating it. A BA A380 has 22 Cabin Crew, a 787-8 has 8. So an A380 is almost three times a 787-8 in terms of crewing costs, hotel rooms downroute etc.