Plus or minus?

A rise in open skies treaties, too, means a relaxation in the constraints on number of flights – as the boom in Australian-bound flights by Chinese airlines demonstrates. The superlative economics of large twins like late-model 777s and the A350 also challenge airlines to make a business case for the superjumbo.

Airbus’s solution: add more seats to the superjumbo. This work is hardly new, since the European airframer has for years been mulling the idea of a 3-5-3 main deck seating layout in economy class.

But the recent trend of cabin densification risks killing the passenger experience golden goose while trying to turn it into an airline accountant’s cash cow – all for the benefit of just under 80 extra seats.

The full list of proposed changes: that 11-abreast economy class, which Airbus claims will add 23 seats. New staircases for the front and rear, adding 34. Premium economy moving from a downstairs 2-4-2 configuration to a 3-3-3 layout, adding an extra seat in every row of premium economy, 11 if it stretches the whole of zone 1 between doors 1 and 2.

Removing upper deck sidewalls so that herringbone seats can tuck their feet underneath, adding six seats. Combining the flight attendant and crew rests, adding three seats.

That’s just inside, though. On the outside, Airbus launched a new set of winglets at the Paris Airshow – not ‘sharklets’, apparently; perhaps ‘whalelets’, for the ‘whale jet’? – and branded the entire set of cabin and aerodynamic changes as ‘A380plus’. Those winglets reduce fuel burn by four per cent, with the remaining changes adding a further seven per cent for a 13 per cent seat-cost reduction.

The winglets, though, aren’t currently planned to be retrofittable, much to the chagrin of the A380’s largest customer, Emirates. Indeed, the winglets aren’t even real winglets: they’re mockups attached to the tips of the wings of A380 MSN4, which Airbus flew to the aerospace museum attached to Le Bourget Airport, home of the Paris Airshow, in February.

But will the A380plus help the A380 to sell? Well, a reduction of seat-mile costs by almost an eighth is nothing to sniff at, and indeed it may prove the tipping point for orders. Emirates has clearly invested a massive amount in its A380 hub in Dubai, and while it may well desire some top-up aircraft it too has been hit by demand externalities, particularly on flights to and from the United States.

The A380, thus, is at a turning point. While Airbus is cagey about the A380’s profitability, it has likely roughly broken even on the aircraft by this point. The question is: what is the future for this aircraft? Boeing, perhaps understandably given the markedly less competitive 747-8I, has stopped forecasting demand for Very Large Aircraft like the big four-holers, given that the 777-9 will grow capacity. Airbus, though, remains bullish, and to an extent its argument feels like it should be persuasive – even if it hasn’t been. Air travel demand is growing.

There will remain hub-to-hub flights that operate from airports restricted in runway, terminal and slot capacity. The growth of smaller narrowbodies will mean there is more connecting traffic from these hubs. The demand for bigger business class seats means more space must be dedicated to this growing and increasingly lucrative market, making an aircraft that might have been a 450-seater now a 400 seater. But the question at this point is: will this demand ramp up fast enough for Airbus to be able to eke out A380 deliveries long enough for demand to grow enough for more airlines to buy – and indeed replace – A380s? As Airbus starts dangling the densification carrot in front of airlines, it starts to feel like the point at which the 747 moved from jet age boondoggle to the heavy lifter of the 1980s and 1990s.

Economy class added a seat from the 3-4-2 layout that some airlines like Qantas originally used to the 3-4-3 configuration seen invariably today. Swivel seats spun out, piano bars tinkled their last ivories, and the Captain Cook Lounge sailed into the sunset.

The 747 has enjoyed a long and storied history once it turned from marvel into workhorse. Will the A380 too?