A question to all frequent flyers who know a bit about aviation or travel enough to, from or within the US:
Why did none of the 3 large US airlines (AA, United or Delta) order any A380s?
I know the base answer would be something about demand, but wouldn't it have made economic sense on some high demand routes like NYC-London or NYC-Hong Kong?
| +95 | Are you “less ambitious” for having long term goals outside of NYC | 24 | 7h | |
| +37 | Interviews Are So Fake | 24 | 7h | |
| +33 | 2024 UK Election - Tories finished? | 20 | 17h | |
| +29 | Being Christian in investment banking | 14 | 11h | |
| +26 | Is my boss gaslighting me? | 3 | 6d | |
| +25 | Non-Competes Banned | 17 | 2h | |
| +22 | Ideas for things to do with a free semester before starting ft? | 9 | 1d | |
| +20 | Sabotaging Peers to Get Ahead? | 34 | 3d | |
| +18 | Moelis has the cutest Analysts? | 4 | 7h | |
| +18 | Best NYC neighborhood for single 30M | 12 | 2d |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
Pure size because it is huge. They seat 525 passengers and the minimum runway length for takeoff is just over 9,000 ft.
Agreed but runways aren't an issue as they could use the same airport the A380s of other airlines use. The seat issue is relevant but then again, AA and United operated the 747 which sat 416 people in the 3 class configuration and 524 in the 2 class one. Surely the extra 109 wouldn't make or break the aircraft.
If you had enough demand to fly an A380 the runway at the airport would definitely be long enough.
Out of curiosity, do the American airlines have many Airbuses anyway? In Europe they're far more common than Boeings, so I would assume Airbus would be relatively uncommon in the US, no?
As an absolute number, all of them have 100+ airbus planes. In terms of %, they all have a much larger percentage of Boeing but that is partly due to bulk discounts they get from the larger order they place. I agree that airbus planes are more common in Europe, but I was looking at it more from a demand standpoint. If the A380 provided a huge plane which can be filled on popular routes then why not buy it? Irrelevant of who makes it.
EDIT: It's a mixed bag. The Big 3 mainly have Boeing, Southwest has all Boeing, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have about a 50:50 split and Spirit Airlines, JetBlue and Virgin America have an all Airbus fleet.
To me I get the impression they took a wait and see approach as all the other players abroad stumbled over each other rushing to get into the production line. Now that it has been around for awhile and clearly not performing the way I think the other carriers expected, none of the domestics are interested in pulling the trigger.
Agreed. But seeing as air passenger numbers are projected to grow, wouldn't it make sense to see it on some routes? Granted, most of the A380 operators didn't leverage it to their full potential and it's been a loss for them (Air France, British Airways, Korean Air) but some have used it much better (Emirates, Qantas and Etihad).
Also, why would new entrants come along now for the A380 if it sucks e.g ANA who ordered 3?
I think it has some to do with where they're flying. A ton of people fly to Paris and London, there's probably 10 different airlines that fly there throughout the US and I'd ballpark it at 50+ airports with direct flights. You'd think it would make sense to put an A380 on a LAX-LHR or JFK-CDG but there are so many flights throughout the day on 757s, 767s, 777s, 787s, A330s, A340s, now A350s to those places that the operator would have to combined something like a 330PM and a 5PM into one to run it on an A380 but another operator will just adjust their timing and now American is stealing 50 passengers that would've otherwise flown BA because the departure times are better.
It works for the ME airlines since they're flying to probably 15 total airports and they're probably only running A380s on large volume routes (out of JFK, LAX, IAH, SFO, maybe DC), max two routes a day (and probably 2 out of NYC only). And it really only works because you can really only get to Dubai direct on Emirates, Abu Dhabi on Etihad, and Doha/Saudi on Qatar as well as US airlines don't fly to the ME period.
No clue on why ANA did other than they can probably fill them going to the West Coast. I'm sure there's some interesting A380 profitability studies out there but I don't have time to look them up,
Hasn't really worked for Qantas. As outlined below why the A380 disadvantages airlines because of the flight times and connections etc. Qantas shot themselves in the foot with not buying 777s and going for the A380 option instead.
Delta is too busy getting every last mile out of their MD-88's
What routes do they fly with those?
I believe routes with a total flight time under 2 hours
Unfortunately very accurate. Just checked and they still have 106 of those and 65 MD-90's. Boeing 757-200 - 100 Boeing 757-300 - 16
757s and 767s are becoming a rare commodity now.
That is nuts... how many total hours do some of those have? Legitimately curious
Dunno on hours but the average age of their MD88 is 27.7 years old.
Disregard (Stupid Comment)
This same exact question could be asked for why the three major US airlines aren't buying the new 747-8 (that has actually been a complete flop worldwide). Overall, the market for super-jumbos has not been nearly as high as Airbus experts thought 10-15 years ago. However, just a few thoughts in regard to the major US based airlines...
Old article on DL using all those MD-88/90s. It works pretty well in those 2-3 hours routes when oil is cheap https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203406404578072960852910072
A380 is a proven failure at this point. It only works for a very specific set of high volume routes and most people and airline would prefer flights every 2 hour vs. 2 a day as mentioned by someone else. Works for Emirates cause they are picking up people from Asia / Africa countries in smaller planes, combining them in Dubai and putting them in an A380 to JFK or IAD. Mostly low cost vacation travelers or immigrants, who don't mind the 9 hour layover in Dubai and getting put on a ~400 seat economy class (which is how most Emirates A380 are configured). Price matters for them and the consolidated hub strategy works for all the middle east guys given proximity to initial country.
There are lot of articles around why this didn't work out - basically they got the thesis wrong. Airbus went for Hub and Spoke with A380 and Boeing went with point to point with 787. Then Airbus figured out they made a mistake and refocused on A350 and A320Neo. A380s don't make money for them and most airlines don't want to buy a 550 seat plane and not be able to fill half the seats where the frame itself burns a lot of fuel.
The A380 has a perverse issue of being too efficient. The airline model is getting turned on its head right now with the huge improvements in efficiency the aircraft have achieved over the past 20 years. You can fly a 787 nonstop from LA to Sydney, the problem is that makes it easy to skip airports and thus cuts down the ability of airlines service smaller markets. This is increasing the demand for planes from airlines and lowering their ROI per aircraft. The demand for super large aircraft is falling because of the ability of aircraft to fly direct.
http://www.businessinsider.com/united-airlines-cfo-airbus-a380-superjum…
United Airlines CFO: Airbus A380 superjumbo 'doesn't work' for us
Benjamin Zhang
Jun. 8, 2015
As Airbus continues its search for new A380 customers, one carrier that won't be joining the select club of superjumbo owners is United Airlines. In an interview with Flightglobal's Edward Russell, United Airlines CFO John Rainey said the mammoth Airbus jet "doesn't work" for the airline's network.
Instead of the A380, United has concentrated its resources on cheaper and smaller wide-body jets, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350XWB. According to Rainey, the A380's higher trip costs make the plane less competitive against smaller rivals such as the Dreamliner. This is despite the fact that the superjumbo returns similar per-seat costs as the smaller jets.
The A380 may offer great value to those who are looking to move huge numbers of people to and from their global hubs — carriers such as Emirates, Singapore, and Etihad. But for United, the preference is to offer as many flights as possible throughout the day.
Instead of "one flight a day and fill up an A380, we'd rather serve [a market] with a couple widebodies if the demand was there, because business passengers certainly like that," Rainey told Flightglobal. According to Rainey, high frequency is the name of the game for important moneymaking routes, such as New York to London.
United's long-haul fleet is one the world's largest operators of the Boeing 777 and will depend on the Boeing Dreamliner and the Airbus XWB for the bulk of its future operations. Airbus is in middle of a sales push for the A380. The double-decker airliner is used by a dozen or so carriers around the world, but the manufacturer has struggled to find new customers willing to take on the aircraft.
Of the 317 A380s ever ordered, 140 have been ordered by Emirates.
This actually makes a lot of sense. But the 2 things that I still can get my head around are 1. demand for certain routes which are often oversubscribed; NYC-London could probably fill 4-5 A380s a day. 2. even considering the point to point model, couldn't US carriers bring people on an A380 from NYC to London, then bring UK people and European from London to Hong Kong all with the same A380?
NYC-LHR isn’t exactly over subscribed. There are like 8 airlines doing those and you also have Gatwick and low cost guys. Also it doesn’t make sense to buy 3 A380 do one route only. Maintenance is a key cost component and having only 3 aircraft doesn’t work favorably (vs. having 140 of the same). You need to invest in support staff, technicians, spare parts and also redundancy in case one is out. You’d literally spend $300mm for the back up plane for your 3 plane fleet.
LHR isn’t a DL/UA/AA hub. They’re not going to fly people from LHR to Mozambique or Florence. British Airways would do that with their hub there. So for US guys, doesn’t make sense to disperse people from LHR on their own. They could do code share or partnerships , which they already do. Eg. AA/British/Iberia, DL/AF/KLM, UA/Lufthansa
we should create a dedicated airline sub forum on here. Im sure a bunch of guys here cover this industry and can provide a ton of knowledge.
Amet quas dolores nihil illum temporibus ut omnis. Est qui excepturi rem nobis consequatur. Qui error dolor soluta qui reiciendis asperiores atque. Ea sint et explicabo. Eum distinctio neque doloremque quidem. Cumque quis officia asperiores enim.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Ea ut repellat modi amet est rerum id minima. Et in sint harum odit animi deleniti maxime. Voluptas dolores ipsa fuga.
Perferendis consequatur molestiae est porro occaecati. Cumque quod veritatis repudiandae modi ipsa quia.
Cupiditate accusamus praesentium consequatur sed incidunt sit nobis. Nobis rerum repellat voluptatem rerum non. Error numquam velit sit qui facilis ut qui. Non adipisci rerum possimus sit corrupti quis. Rerum in laborum consequatur.