On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 03:42:51 GMT, "Colin W Kingsbury"
wrote:


"nobody" wrote in message
...

By september, I suspect that the A380 will have done enough test flights
to provide a good idea on what it will truly be capable of. That is when
we may see more airlines buying into the 380 now that they know whether
it meets its promises or not.

OK, but none of this addresses the real core question of what the market
actually wants. I believe the A380 probably has a very good future in air
cargo, but it remains an open question how widely it will prove profitable
in passenger service. Boeing guessed right with the 747, France/UK got it
beautifully wrong with Concorde. Clearly this is the right plane for flying
from Tokyo to Singapore. I read in one story that about half of A380s are
expected to operate between just 10 airports, which is believable.

There's a question in here about how fast and in what way the market for air
travel will grow. There are to the best of my knowledge no 747s operating in
domestic service in the US (except the occasional repositioning flight) even
on trans-continental flights that are as long as trans-Atlantic routes.
Hub-and-spoke carriers are being bled to death by the point-to-point LCCs,
who mostly operate 737-size planes. But compared to Asia and Europe, the US
is larger and more sparsely populated,

What definition do you use that makes the US larger than Asia?

--==++AJC++==--