Analyse the industry and you will see at once the folly of the 380.
1. Many airlines are moving towards smaller jets.
2. Airlines that are operating on the older HUB model have been losing money
for many years, while smaller regeonals using the direct flight model are
making money. The direct flight model requires smaller planes.
3. Pilot pay is going down, so it is no longer a big money savings reducing
the number of pilots by flying larger planes.
4. Gas costs are going up, and will continue to rise for the next several
years. Fuel efficiency is key.

With these factors in mind, it is at the least very risky to be putting all
of your eggs in one basket with the A380. If it does not sell like hot
cakes, Airbus is going to take a bath, and the Euro taxpayers are going to
be footing the bill.

"G Farris" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

Boeing may well be the market leader this year, on the
strength of the 787.



I find this very tenuous.
If Boeing does manage to slow the hemmorrage of market share this year, it
will be thanks to a traditional agreement with the Japanese, and not to
any
purported strengths of a plane that does not exist, and that no one knows
much
about, except that it has wavy lines on the floor instead of straight
ones.
(Are these supposed to help drunken passengers navigate, or are they a
metaphor for Boeing's own management strategy?).

They year is young yet. Airbus is about to proceed with the most
spectacular
rollout since the 747 - and I have not seen any billboards saying, "Would
the
last one to leave Toulouse please turn out the lights . . ." The prestige
and
media coverage of the event can only enhance their posture (unless of
course
the rollout ends the way the initial A320 demonstration did)!

And Boeing, in their wavering wisdom, have chosen this moment to announce
the
end of the 747 program. What stupidity! Not to end it, I mean - but to
announce it now - to say to all the asian carriers who use almost
exclusively
jumbos "YES, we have NO ANSWER to Airbus's A380!" They have thus spent
time
and money gold-plating the silver platter on which they deliver this
lucrative
market to their competitor.

I'm American, and I would love to see Boeing at least maintain parity with
Airbus in deliveries, as well as maintaining their stature as a
technological
flagship of American industry. Byt then, I went to University of
Minnesota,
and I quickly learned the futility of rooting for any of their teams!

G Faris