Why Did The Mighty Airbus A380 Fail?

The Mighty A380

We all have the seen or heard about the engineering marvel that was introduced to compete against the Boeing 747. But Unfortunately, Just after 12 years of commercial service airbus announced the retirement of this mighty aircraft.

Depending upon the configuration, It has a seating capacity of 525 passengers, Twice the amount of new Boeing 787, to about 825 passengers, It provides a range of 14800 km, But burning twice more fuel, compared to fuel - efficient equivalent range jets like the new A350 and the 787.

For the A380 to sustain in the aviation market, The airbus hoped that with restricted number of takeoffs and landings in the hub airports, The airlines would require bigger jets to serve passengers through increasingly congested airports, Instead of using frequent daily connections of smaller/mid sized jets. However, The introduction of fuel efficient jets like A350, 787s and the slow air traffic growth, The A380s future looked bleak.

With airlines questioning the point of flying one large plane once a day, Instead of flying multiple planes at multiple times a day, Thus giving flexibility to the passengers itself and gaining lower costs per seat, played a huge role for airlines to not consider A380 as an option.

Despite, Emirates being the only airline to fly most of A380s till date, Ironically had the biggest success, But announced to stop buying the superjumbo jet  in June 2019 and opted for 40 smaller planes from airbus, The A330-900 and 30 A350-900.

One of 19 A380 of Singapore Airlines

The biggest advantage of A380 was the capacity, Which could generate a whopping $150million of revenue per year, If filled to its maximum capacity. But that was just far from reality, With fuel being the biggest operating costs for an airline. The mighty 4 engines of A380, Also made the airlines to rethink their decisions to more fuel efficient twin - engine jets, and retiring few of the in-service A380 to replace with the newer efficient jets.

But A380 has its pros too, It is an engineering marvel and widely loved by the passengers. The non turbulent, Quiet cabin experience and the spaciousness, Made passengers feel more homely compared to other jets. Having First Class Apartments like in the Etihad Airways A380 and The luxurious Residence Class, Which is basically a living room, A separate bedroom and an ensuite shower. Furthermore, With fancy onboard bars and 18 inch wide economy seats drew a lot of attention to many luxury and frequent passengers. Although with all such facilities one could imagine. The cabin upgradation for economy and business classes, was over $45million.

But with all this, I am glad we are able to witness such an innovation, That would reside forever  in our minds for many years to come. 

All I can say is, The A380 was at the right place at the wrong time.

Reference

Forbes, Feb 15, 2019, The Plane That Never Should Have Been Built: The A380 Was Designed For Failure, Viewed 13th May, 2020