A380 unveiling, 1/18/05, Live.

"AJC" wrote in message
news

You'd be wise to do better than 'inform' yourself from an American
'Neolibertarian community portal' (their description, not mine!).

Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!



Wonderful. That old trick.

Yes, like your remarks about neolibertarian....

Anyone who has another opinion, does things
in a different way, disagrees with you, just call them a fascist.

Ah, no....people/nations that demonstrate textbook examples of fascist
economic and political systems are called "fascist".

Thanks for playing Sparky.

[plonk]

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.

"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.

"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:
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.

You don't get it. There are markets where demand is high. High enough
that the USA airlines, instead of getting bigger planes, put multiple
flights one after the other because they philosophically refuse to fly a
big plane. Trans-atlantic flights don't need much frequency becayse the
window is not that big. In the evening, you can run on big flight and it
won't affect passenger's schedules, especially if it means you get the
prefered landing slot at LHR to allow the right connections.

Southwest's "one plane fits all", has already been broken since WN has
737s of different sizes.

Secondly, it is also its achile's heel. Right now, ON AVERAGE,
Southwest's policy works out with costs that are lower than the legacy
carriers. Not so much because the 737 is a better plane for its whole
network, but simply because Southwest is better runned, better managed,
and has better staff. (costs less, does more).

However, if you were to clone Southwest, and then make changes to that
clone so that it would sharply focus its fleet to have the most
efficient aircraft for a specific route and be able to manage that fleet
properly, the cloned Southwest would be able to have lower costs on many
routes compared to the original Southwest, and more importantly, would
be able to serve markets that the current Southwest can't serve.

So, take AA for instance on its JFK-LHR route. Because it operates a
large number of flights, its average crew/pax ratio is higher than
airlines that operate fewer flights with bigger planes. So AA's costs
have to be higher on that route.

Similarly, because AA lacks 747s, it can't really serve asia well, nor
the south pacific, and must rely on its Oneword partners.

Consider the case of Virgin. It started off with a few aircraft that
were extremely well focused on the routes it wanted to fly and it was
succesful and grew from there.

AA is too big and wants to apply one-plane-fits-all for its intl flights
to simplify its fleet. But that means that individual flighst are not
operated at best possible efficiency, especially on routes where you
have someone like Virgin that does operate at best efficiency for that route.


Yes, there are compelling arguments to reduce aircraft types in a fleet.
But when your 777s used domestically are different from those on
atlantic and different from those used in pacific, does that really give
you much in terms of fleet flexibility ? The minute you change seat
assignments due to aircraft change, you get the same headaches.

On long hauls though, there is a compelling argument in favour of using
1 plane type on a route. Why ? So that at your remote base, any pilot
currently staying there is able to take the next flight back should one
crew be incapacitated etc.


Having fewer plane types may simplify fleet management and maintenance.
But it also means that your network does not operate at its most
efficient level because you're not using the best aircraft for your
routes, you're using an aircraft that is average for your average route.

What happens when for each route you operate, there is a smaller airline
that operates a far more efficient aircraft for that route ? Then none
of your flighst are competitive, even though on paper, your fleet is
well managed.

Dave wrote:
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.


It would be interesting to find out what percentage of US intl traffic
originates from very large cities like New York, Chicago, LAX, from the
mediaum cities like Boston, San Francisco, Houston/Dallas, and from
out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere cities like Otumwah Iowa.

My guess is that people who live in New York have no problems seing the
380 as filling a need, the people in medium cities don't see a need for
the 380, and the people out in the boon dock probably do see the need
since they are forced to connect through a large city anyways.

"Thomas Borchert" wrote:
Coming from the fascist EU that's rich!!!


From the what??? ROFL!

According to the current right-wing doublespeak in the U. S., Hitler was
a socialist because his party was called the National Socialist Party,
Hitler was a fascist, Europe is socialist, therefore Europe is fascist.

How's that for logic?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

nobody wrote:

Dave wrote:

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.



It would be interesting to find out what percentage of US intl traffic
originates from very large cities like New York, Chicago, LAX, from the
mediaum cities like Boston, San Francisco, Houston/Dallas, and from
out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere cities like Otumwah Iowa.

My guess is that people who live in New York have no problems seing the
380 as filling a need, the people in medium cities don't see a need for
the 380, and the people out in the boon dock probably do see the need
since they are forced to connect through a large city anyways.



Cities like New York/Boston, LA/San Francisco, and Houston/Dallas are
more likely to support increased frequency than larger size if it can be
done economically.

nobody wrote:

"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:

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.


You don't get it. There are markets where demand is high. High enough
that the USA airlines, instead of getting bigger planes, put multiple
flights one after the other because they philosophically refuse to fly a
big plane. Trans-atlantic flights don't need much frequency becayse the
window is not that big. In the evening, you can run on big flight and it
won't affect passenger's schedules, especially if it means you get the
prefered landing slot at LHR to allow the right connections.

Southwest's "one plane fits all", has already been broken since WN has
737s of different sizes.

Secondly, it is also its achile's heel. Right now, ON AVERAGE,
Southwest's policy works out with costs that are lower than the legacy
carriers. Not so much because the 737 is a better plane for its whole
network, but simply because Southwest is better runned, better managed,
and has better staff. (costs less, does more).


The 737s are a better size for Southwest. They fit the model of rapid
turn around and quick boarding. A significantly larger plane would blow
the business model.


However, if you were to clone Southwest, and then make changes to that
clone so that it would sharply focus its fleet to have the most
efficient aircraft for a specific route and be able to manage that fleet
properly, the cloned Southwest would be able to have lower costs on many
routes compared to the original Southwest, and more importantly, would
be able to serve markets that the current Southwest can't serve.

So, take AA for instance on its JFK-LHR route. Because it operates a
large number of flights, its average crew/pax ratio is higher than
airlines that operate fewer flights with bigger planes. So AA's costs
have to be higher on that route.

Similarly, because AA lacks 747s, it can't really serve asia well, nor
the south pacific, and must rely on its Oneword partners.

Consider the case of Virgin. It started off with a few aircraft that
were extremely well focused on the routes it wanted to fly and it was
succesful and grew from there.

AA is too big and wants to apply one-plane-fits-all for its intl flights
to simplify its fleet. But that means that individual flighst are not
operated at best possible efficiency, especially on routes where you
have someone like Virgin that does operate at best efficiency for that route.


Yes, there are compelling arguments to reduce aircraft types in a fleet.
But when your 777s used domestically are different from those on
atlantic and different from those used in pacific, does that really give
you much in terms of fleet flexibility ? The minute you change seat
assignments due to aircraft change, you get the same headaches.

On long hauls though, there is a compelling argument in favour of using
1 plane type on a route. Why ? So that at your remote base, any pilot
currently staying there is able to take the next flight back should one
crew be incapacitated etc.


Having fewer plane types may simplify fleet management and maintenance.
But it also means that your network does not operate at its most
efficient level because you're not using the best aircraft for your
routes, you're using an aircraft that is average for your average route.

What happens when for each route you operate, there is a smaller airline
that operates a far more efficient aircraft for that route ? Then none
of your flighst are competitive, even though on paper, your fleet is
well managed.

"Frank F. Matthews" wrote:

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.

Load factors are at an all time high in the US as any frequent traveler can tell
you. Its yields that are down.

Translated: that means lots of people are flying, but not enough people are
buying those $800-$1000 last minute unrestricted tickets.

That's why NWA squawked so much when Delta dropped their max domestic fare to
$499.

In article ,
rk wrote:


Or even hourly charges for labor for time wasted sitting around an airport.
That adds up rather quickly.


how many business travelers are hourly employees?

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like