Quote:
Originally posted by dd74
I've always wondered what the reason is for building this aircraft. I think it's interesting; it's certainly huge, but if a 767 can fly from L.A. to Europe, and a 737 from L.A. to Hawaii, and a 747 fly easily from L.A. to Asia, I would think all bases are fairly covered - these are just examples from L.A.X. being a hub, BTW. I agree if cargo were this plane's particular execution, then the bigger the better. But I'm not sure, otherwise. Maybe a profit can be made with the amount of passengers the plane can carry vs. cheaper fares.
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Economies of scale and range. Airbus claims 25% lower costs per passenger, thanx to lower fuel-burn etc. It's still to fly so we don't know how good it is.
Air-travel is still expanding and some routes are already overbooked.
Bigger airport have finite amount of slots allocated for takeoffs and only way to move more people is to pack them more densely per flight. Also, certain carriers in middle.east are expanding rapidly and need big birds.
They are talking about packing bars and gyms aboard the A380 (!) but it might as well end up with streched sardine-can packing 800 pax in all-economy configuration
