NEWS FLASH 14th February 2019.... As Airbus confirms today that they will cease to produce of the A380 in 2021 there is utter shock and outrage within the EU27 as European business leaders and the EU Commission fails to blame Brexit for Airbus' failure to manufacture a viable aircraft. Instead, Airbus are now blaming everyone else in the world for not buying their startlingly perfect aircraft that was supposed to change the face of modern aviation, despite having the economic viability of the French national railway system. A source at at Airbus as confirmed to this reporter that they had been in contact with the office of Jean-Claude Junker in order to come up with some bullshit yarn about the A380s failure being a direct result of Brexit, however, Junker was of the opinion that not even the remainers would swallow such a load of tosh. .....he didn't really.... The Grauniad
There was a debate on the Beeb's PM show last night which explained in depth that the era of super-passenger jets is over; apparently most flights have too many empty seats, and most travellers these days would rather pay more to go from A to B in a direct flight (in smaller planes which can more easily filled?), than to hubs/onward travel in the big ones. It's so logical that we have to wonder why they built jumbos in the first place? Good opportunity for yet another Project Fear outing though.
Well apart from the fact that no-one is suggesting that Brexit had anything to do with the failure of the A380 and that it's due to the market forces described so well by cerberus.
Regarding the highlighted, there were many factors: The rise of the budget carriers like Easyjet have enabled regional airports to expand - thirty years ago point-to-point would have been limited by number of destinatons Until some time in the 1980s, by law planes flying transoceanic had to have a minimum of three engines which mitigated towards larger planes New materials have allowed long range twin engined jets to operate more financially efficiently Jumbo jets made a lot of sense in the 1970's and 1980's. Both Boeing and Airbus thought that they were the future, they were both wrong.
That was always the puzzler back in the 1980s/90s when both Boeing and Airbus started looking at the way flight habits and demands would change with the growth of the low cost carriers. Boeing opted for the Dreamliners, point to point, and airbus came up with the A380, hub to hub. Guess who won that battle.... I would love to know how much money EU governments had to sink into the launch aid program for the A380? I would bet its into the billions and I know that in 2017 Airbus was having major issues repaying that which had so far been invested so god knows what that figure is now. And, the launch aid program is also a major issue between the EU and the US in WTO where the US are seeking $11Bn in sanctions against the EU in respect of both the A350 and the A380. Airbus is a Chimera; its part political animal and part commercial animal born out of the desire of the French wanting to prop up their old ailing aviation companies at the expense of the EU taxpayers and to salvage some of their national pride against having to buy aircraft from American manufacturers. I guess the EU thought that having a politically motivated collaborative enterprise funded by the EU was better than admitting defeat against the Americans? Its an EU/state funded employment scheme; I mean the business case for the A380 from the start was always marginal so the EU invested billions in some pipe dream by Airbus who pocketed the money and walk away from the debt!!
Well I did warn them it was a bad idea. I'll never forget the sight of that Airbus plane which crashed into a forest - it was sort of hypnotic in it's inevitability.
Did you know that Airbus tried to declare the French Pilot (a guy called Asseline) insane because he stated that inspite of appying power as he approached the mid-point of the runway the computers of the aircraft decided that it should land. Asseline tried to pull the aircraft up and apply power but the computers kept trying to land so the aircraft went into a compressor stall at the end of the runway and hit the trees. Asseline stated that the computers were at fault but Airbus said this was impossible and thus he must be mad.
No I didn't know that, but now I do, it does explain the 'slow-motion' surrealism of the event - that it was going to happen and nothing could stop it.
