"Frank F. Matthews" wrote in message
...


AJC wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:17:11 -0000, "Dave"
wrote:


A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
hours.

The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
probably did quite well.


No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
they put in then on these routes.
The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process
the passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties
carried out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now
available, it is entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc.
One immigration officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing
for the non straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.


This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there
is often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago
the United flight was half full


This is why so many Americans are so sceptical of the market for the
380. They mostly see small aircraft, empty flights, airlines in
financial problems. Go to airports in Europe, Asia and you see 744s
lined up, and as you say get on the flights and they are packed.
Traffic on the Europe-Asia-Aus/NZ routes is booming, within Europe
there is steady growth, while it is declining on the North Atlantic.
--==++AJC++==--


Actually I haven't seen many small aircraft and no empty flights in the US
for the past several years. The problems are a lack of revenue and not a
lack of passengers. Now finding passengers wanting to fly limited routes
so as to fly a 380 that may be a problem.

a good reason 380 will not be seen much in the US but on the Europe/ Asia /
Aus NZ run they will be in big demand. You can see it in the list of initial
customers. It is a pretty narrow channel but it is fearsomely busy and the
380 will do well.

Given than many people in the US never travel outside the country, it is
possible they don't understand that. Only about 10% of Americans have
passports. In the US its smaller planes to little places, its a different
market entirely. After all by the time you get to somewhere like Rapid City
from say London the planes have got progressive smaller and smaller. If the
journey has not eroded your will to live then the destination will.

Whereas flying down the Europe Australia channel, there is only an small
amount of transferring to be done to or from the main hubs and even then you
may be in bigger planes.