Jousting jumbos

Airbus chief operating officer – customer John Leahy told Australian Aviation he hopes to repeat that success this year, although the order book for 2012 is blank so far but probably being held for the Farnborough Air Show. The orders probably will include one announced commitment for four A380s for Russian airline Transaero Airlines.

Since launch, Airbus has secured 283 gross orders for the A380 with 30 mainly freighter cancellations. But it’s understood Air Austral’s order for two A380s may be in doubt.

So far, 75 A380s have been delivered to eight customers: Emirates (21), Singapore Airlines (17), Qantas (12), Lufthansa (9), Air France (7), Korean Air (5), China Southern Airlines (3) and Malaysia Airlines (1). Qantas has now deferred its remaining eight A380s order in 2006 to reduce its capex.

The fleet of 75 A380s is operating on 64 routes to 29 destinations as at July 1.

According to Airbus director of product marketing A380 Richard Carcaillet the number of hub cities is growing significantly with 39 identified in 2011 and 32 of those are congested.

He argues that slot and time zone constraints drive frequency concentration between such hubs as Tokyo and Los Angeles with seven flights within three hours ex Tokyo and the same ex Los Angeles, adding that A380s are being operated at all of the top 10 international airports and 16 of the top 29.

But the A380 is also being flown to a host of cities well down the list of top airports and include: Melbourne (46), Washington DC (56), Zurich (57), Jeddah (78), Manchester (79), Johannesburg (84), Auckland (104) and Montreal (108).

In all, the A380 has visited 142 airports through commercial service or world tours.

This October 25 will be the A380’s fifth anniversary of its first commercial service with Singapore Airlines on the Singapore to Sydney route and the airline reports that the aircraft is generating loads of 81 per cent — ahead of its system-wide average of 77.9 per cent.

And naturally, it’s a theme that Airbus is pushing, with the curiosity factor and the predictable attraction to a large aircraft as well as airlines showcasing their latest cabin innovations.

Mr Carcaillet says: “The A380 attracts passengers, boosting traffic and increasing market share. Its attractiveness raises load factors, as the increase in demand exceeds the
increase in seat capacity. Higher demand, and lower costs mean a range of opportunities for revenue management and competitive fare strategies.”

The biggest supporter of the A380 is Emirates, which has commitments for 90. President Tim Clark says: “A380 flights are almost always full. In all of my 40 years in the business, I’ve never known an aircraft to be so popular.”

And Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told Australian Aviation that the A380 has “increased load factors by three per cent” with a similar hike in yield over the 747.

Airbus is now pushing hard on seat width (18.5in) for the A380 over the 747 (17.2in) and the ten-abreast 777 (17in). Ironically, the 10-abreast configuration is that of its biggest A380 customer Emirates, whose passengers don’t seem to mind the configuration, judging by the airline’s success.

Airbus has rolled out the argument — with no accreditation — that the extra width translates into a feeling of great seat pitch. I recall Boeing touting a similar and very convincing argument when it first showed the 777 in the early 1990s, saying that less width combined with slightly extra pitch was an excellent passenger outcome.

But a factor that has been university tested is the window area related to customer preference. The paper Are Windows and Views Really Better by Kim et al of the University of Michigan found that “views and windows have psychological and economic value”.

When it comes to windows all Boeing designs have larger — and more — windows than their Airbus competitors. Boeing says the 747 has about 30 per cent more viewing area per passenger and 20 per cent less space between windows compared with the A380.

The 747-400 has 188 windows sized at 10 x 14in (25 x 35cm) while the double-deck A380 has 220, with a size of 9 x 13in (23 x 33cm). That advantage is greater with the 747-8, which features 777-size windows of 10 x 15in (25 x 38cm).

And Boeing isn’t slow to point out that the A380 has “somewhat claustrophobic turret-style windows” . But all that means little when most passengers want to pull down the shades and watch videos.

What is a winner is the quietness of the A380 and according to Airbus it has a dBSIL3 reading of 57 compared to the 747-400 with about 63 and the 777-300ER at 61.

However, the 747-8I has a significantly lower noise level than the 747-400 according to Aviation Week’s Guy Norris, who was on the first service from Frankfurt to Washington DC. “I think however the A380 is still a tad quieter,” he told Australian Aviation.

Still on creature comforts, Airbus claims its A380 has more temperature zones at 15, with less passengers at 35 per zone compared with, for example, the 777 with six zones and a ratio of 55 passengers.
A380 skeptics says all this comfort comes at a price but exact numbers are extremely hard to define.

Lufthansa senior vice president – corporate fleet Nico Buchholz told attendees at ATW’s Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington in 2010 that he believed the 747-8 would have almost the same fuel burn per passenger as the A380 on typical missions.

“These are numbers on our load factors, on our network and in our configurations,” he said,
adding that the 747-8 would have a fuel burn of 3.51 liters per passenger per 100 km while the A380 with Rolls-Royce engines, which Lufthansa also has ordered, would achieve a burn of 3.4 liters.

However, the 747-8I is over spec at the moment. Lufthansa is hopeful that it will receive an improved version with performance to match the original specification with its 11th aircraft.

Speaking on May 2 to Flightglobal at the delivery ceremony in Frankfurt, chief executive of Lufthansa’s passenger division Carsten Spoh said the issue was weight plus the engine not being quite to specification.

He claimed that fuel flow on the 747-8 was “more than 10 per cent” lower than the 747-400 at the same weight, and its efficiency was close to the much larger A380 in Lufthansa’s fleet, in seat/mile cost terms, saying: We believe we will get very close, not quite [equal], to the A380.”

But he was not concerned by the 747-8I’s sluggish sales performance: “I love the exclusivity I can give my passengers now but in the end, bigger fleets have advantages in terms of spare parts and residual value,” he said. “When people see this entry into service being successful, there will be more demand for the 747-8.”

According to the Airbus fuel burn chart a A380 with 525 passengers is between 11-15 per cent more fuel efficient than the 747-8I with 405 seats. But a comparison using Lufthansa’s A380 and 747-8I aircraft is not possible.

Lufthansa has 526 seats in its A380 and only a 386-seat configuration of its new 747-8I because it decided to roll out fully lie-flat business class seats on its 747-8I. The seats or beds require 8 per cent more space and the airline will re-configure the rest of its fleet over the next three years.

Another comparison that can be made is with the A380 vs the 777-300ER in Emirates operations. Airbus claims its A380 with 525 seats burns 12 per cent less fuel than a 305 seat 777-300ER.

However, in Emirates configuration the A380 has 517 seats with 14 first, 76 business and 427 economy, after it moved the crew rest off the main deck. Its long-haul 777-300ERs have 364 seats in a 12/42/310 configuration.

Certainly, the 777 has 10-across seating in economy but has a seat pitch of 34in as opposed to 32in in the A380, according to the airline’s website.
On fuel burn on the Dubai-New York sector the A380 burns 198 tons of fuel while the 777-300ER 109 tons, according to one of the airline’s senior captains.

Working those numbers and leaving freight out of the equation, the A380 burns 0.36 tons of fuel per passenger and the 777-300ER 0.29 tons per passenger. But there are many variables and the devil — or corrections — are so often in the detail.

On seat kilometre costs Airbus again claims the high ground — or should that be the lowest ground. It uses the same numbers of 525 seats and 305 seats for the 777-300ER with a 20 per cent lower seat mile costs and 15 per cent better than the 747-8I with 405 seats.

But quite possibly the best guide is what investors and airlines tell Airfinance Journal.
In a survey on building the best fleet the 777-300ER was the standout winner in almost every category:

It was the operators’ pick for the best residual value scoring 4.36 while the A380 ranked ninth at 3.44 and the 747-8 was 12 at 3.33.

The 777-300ER was also the operators pick for best value for money rating 4.40 with the A380 at 11 at 3.44. The 747-8 ranked 15 at 3.38.

For operational success the 777-300ER again took top honors with the A380 faring better at number 4 spot.

Not surprisingly the 777-300ER also took out the investors pick for best residual value at 4.35 but the A380 was well down at 16th at 2.67.

The 747-8 –the freighter – ranked slightly better at 14th at 2.75.

But away from these numbers the numbers that count says Airbus are the bums on seats and the A380 certainly has the X factor.

In various route analyses Airbus said that when the A380 was introduced to the Singapore-London route in 2008 and 2009, Qantas’s share went up eight per cent and Singapore Airlines’ one per cent while British Airways’, without the A380, declined by nine per cent.

On the Singapore-Hong Kong route Singapore Airlines had a 43 per cent hike in traffic on a 37 per cent increase in capacity. And Lufthansa found on the Frankfurt- Tokyo route that although capacity jumped 52 per cent, load factor increased by 5 per cent. JAL and ANA had seven per cent and 17 per cent declines in traffic.

For Korean Airlines the A380 has been a big hit on the Seoul New York route with load factors hovering around the 90 per cent mark. China Southern has been achieving 92 per cent load factors during its first months of operations.

But while the A380 has enjoyed the “latest and greatest status” it will be interesting to see how much of that limelight is taken away by the plastic fantastic as deliveries finally gain some momentum and put to the acid test Boeing’s “point to point rules” claim.