@DJJS: shut yo mouth!

AznSmith

airbus:lets kill 900 more people!
people: yea sure!

Amiash

more planes(if they are smaller) means more traffic to be controlled, more fuel and more options for consumers IF they dont cancel flights. Bigger planes more people to apologize if something goes wrong, more people will be late if the flight is delayed etc etc. There is no Right way, there is more viable way and that depends in your economic model as company.

@DJJS: I think it was from an old post of "OMG someone left his/her computer on the runway" witch ended up being photoshoped pic to show the whale size of this baby.

dysthymia

when the a380 picture was first released giz put that macbook their, so we could see just how big the plane was!

thistle.john

Umm whats dose the computer (apple) have to do with this?
but dam.. thats one huge motha..

DJJS

The thing is, people are getting bigger, but plains do not offer more space. So it really doesen't matter if it's a big A380 or a small Boeing, the leg space remains the same. F them. If they make a 900 passengers A380, this will only mean, less space for legs. F THEM!

PRO7

TFSU!

daftrok

Airbus has lost the plot.. They lost it a long time ago actually.

It's not a pissing game. Boeing went the right way with the more fuel effecient economic planes.

Now Airbus trying to actually profit of the A380's by packing 900 people in them.

I can hear Tracie Thoms's character Kim from Death Proof saying "niggah puh-lease!"

Paris Hilton

One crash and headlines all over the world will be declaring this the "Titanic of the Skies"

Empire

Okay, I will show my ignorance of all things Mac-fan-boyish. What does the photoshopped image mean?

Monty

@AznSmith:shut yo mouth!

fanboy..
: If your going to try to insult me at least spell right dumb ass. the word is 'Your' k..

DJJS

They're all going to look really stupid when I come out with my $5 antigravity belt.

mullingitover

Nine hundred passengers in one takeoff/landing? Checkers, ticketers, baggage handlers, security personnel, customs agents, carousels, and people who have to go to the bathroom really, really badly just found out that there is no God.

HonusWScruggs

photoshopped

samueladamski

Hold up.... Why is there a Macbook stopping the Airbus from continuing its perfectly legal freeway taxi run?

Roflgoat

@Ioakim: Your intuition is correct regarding the false impression of an increased number of fatalities.

But as far as efficiency goes, it turns out that while the seat miles/fuel consumption ratio might be a bit lower with this plane, it represents and props up an inefficient system of air travel (the hub and spoke model). That system arose because of technical limitations in earlier generations of planes that kept smaller, lower capacity planes flying shorter routes to hubs that were needed to fill the larger planes uniquely capable of the long hauls. The problem is that even if each seat on the plane is more fuel efficient, half the people on the plane are going somewhere they don't really want to go and you're adding an unnecessary takeoff and landing to most passengers' flights

Nowadays those limitations have disappeared, and mid-sized planes like the 787 and presumably the A350 can make almost any meaningful connection in the world, making them more efficient.

HonusWScruggs

Oh! THAT's where I left my MacBook!

iamcrazyed

There's something I don't quite understand about comments regarding so-and-so many more dead because the A380 holds so many people. You would first have to establish that the A380 would crash at the same rate or higher using fatal crashes/ # of flights compared to other jumbo jets (747, 777, etc.). Can't do that yet and more importantly every new generation of planes seems to get safer and flight safety in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan are at all time highs. Furthermore, the bigger the plane, theoretically the fewer the number of flights for that plane to transport the same number of passengers...and you get the point.
As for fuel efficiency, usually (maybe there are exceptions) the more people per vehicle for a given trip, the more fuel savings you enjoy...true for planes, trains, cars, and I figure planes. I'm guessing a loaded A380 sucks less fuel than the 747 + 737 you would need to transport the same number of people to the same destination.

Ioakim

I was wondering what the mac had to do with it all until i saw the little blue dot next to the forward wheal. Its not a very good size comparison, the whole spans a freeway i think gives a better bearing on it.

Gadgetlover

It's been said before and it shall be said again:

"I know how to make air travel nicer - put more people on the plane. Because everyone wants to have more screaming babies and fat people around them."

omg-ponies

@HonusWScruggs:
Thanks, that makes sense. However, would you consider that a plane issue or more of an infrastructure issue. In other words, couldn't the A380 take as much advantage out of a point-to-point model? Anyway, to be honest, if I had my druthers, what I would like to see as a passenger would be FASTER air travel. It just bugs me that given all the advances in technology, we are stuck in a mode of travel that looks very much like it looked 40 years ago. I think if you asked people at the time the Concorde started full service in 1976 what we would be flying around a generation later in 2007, it wouldn't be the A380 or any of the current crop of jumbos.

Ioakim

Zoom Zoom Zoom.
Ya Zoom Zoom Zoom

SeattleTed

@Ioakim: You can have faster, or you can have cheaper. You can't have both.

Unfortunately, going faster means burning more fuel, which drives passenger costs up quite a bit. Not only do you burn more fuel per passenger, but you need to carry more fuel - meaning you carry fewer passengers for any given amount of lift capacity.

We have the technology to build an SST, we just don't have the technology to build one that can operate economically - especially with oil as expensive as it is.

The future of civil SSTs is likely in bizjets and small charter operators who cater to those for whom the cost is not an issue considering the time saved. The same economics that make the costs of standard bizjets viable. It costs more to fly one - but what is that CEO's time worth? And then you have the rich crowd who fly charter jets because they can.

Unfortunately, it will probably be a long time, if ever, before us peons have an affordable option for SST travel.

MegaZone

Since day one Airbus has talked about stretched models of the A380. The first model flying is the A380-800. The A380 Freighter was supposed to be the next, and its beefed up structure would form the basis of the A380-900, the first stretch. Though it may go the other way now that all the freighter orders were canceled. A further stretch, the A380-1000, has also been floated.

So none of this is news. Note that the passenger figures are for All Cattle Car - I mean, All Coach - configurations. Today's A380-800 is an '800 passenger' plane - but no one operates it that way, or plans to at this time. It is, more realistically, 525 passengers in a three-class configuration, but even that is higher than most operators - who are opting for more luxury and higher prices for those upper class seats.

MegaZone

Boeing and Airbus strategies being different is no news.

Some people here tend to forget that what makes business strategies successful is selling your product to an extent that makes the investment profitable.

It seems that Airbus is doing well with the monster plane sales. But neither me or anybody here has a clue about future. The 747 has been a hit in aviation history, and its birth was also doubtful, as far as I know.

As for leg space in the new configuration, some airline will discover that certain people will want to pay a bit more for a bit more space, and will eventually carry a new configuration out which sale motto will probably be this. After all, are airlines NGO or corporations? Do I miss anything?

MACPollo

You believed what you read on Kansas.com?? I'm from Wichita, don't do that.

w00zzy

@DJJS:

If your going to try to insult me at least spell right dumb ass. the word is 'Your' k..

hahahahaha... might want to check your own spelling sailor.

x23