On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380. Suppose instead they decide to invest in some other program. What *should* they have invested in? And could you have known then? You have about €20 Bn to invest.

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

A mach 18 "orient express" kind of machine.

intotheair wrote:

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

Without the A380 no way does Boeing make a clean sheet VLA. And without the A380, there is a reasonable likelihood that this demand goes to additional 787s or 777 instead of the 747-8. Or maybe to the A350 that moves forward in time because Airbus had the A380 money to invest.

With 20-20 hindsight, get the A350XWB way forward, it would have given the B77W a run for its money a lot earlier.

Back in 2000 Airbus was contemplating making a new A330 with Al-Li body instead of CFRP. If they had gone that way the A330AlLi would have decimated the 787, especially with the neo upgrade later. This move would have given them great flexibility with a larger A350 down the road.

A380 was a done deal albeit a flop.

kitplane01 wrote:

On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380. Suppose instead they decide to invest in some other program. What *should* they have invested in? And could you have known then? You have about €20 Bn to invest.

I'll take it one step further: They shouldn't have invested in updating the A340 either.

Taking the funds from both of those projects could have led to a clean-sheet 777NG killer (while discontinuing the A340) and possibly enough to spare for a clean-sheet 737NG killer by replacing the A320 series.

The only thing left for Boeing would have been the mid market (as the 747's coffin nails were already being driven), and as their cash flow would have been significantly restricted in comparison without the 777NG/737NG printing presses, their ability to follow through on a clean-sheet 787 may not have even been practical...At best, their only option may have been a new wing & engine program on the 767 to better compete with the maturing A330, which would hardly have been as successful as the 787 was against the same A330 (the 787's delays notwithstanding). As for the 757, it was nearly (if not at) a zero-order state already by that time, and probably would have faded away just the same.

Had Airbus not jumped for the A380 and A340NG, Boeing probably would have been looking more like McDonnell-Douglas was in the late 80s into the early 90s.

What would have a 737NG killer have looked liked? The NEO engine technology wasn't there yet and a new body didn't give the save needed. They had the market split. The sweet spot was with the 77W and they tried to address that with the A345/6, that money and effort should have gone to the A350XWB or the A330AlLi would have been interesting.

What *should* Airbus have invested in (year 2000)?

PayPal and Google. They could have kept most of the €20 Bn in the bank too and just made planes for fun today.

This is one of those hindsight questions that is a nice exercise but doesn't really have any true value because we can't change history. Heck most of us don't even learn from it.

KFLLCFII wrote:

Taking the funds from both of those projects could have led to a clean-sheet 777NG killer (while discontinuing the A340)

Similar - I'd have gone for a 9 + 6 abreast double decker (rather than the 10 + 8 we got) in 74m and 80m lengths. The 80m box wouldn't have been the constraint on wing design that has been the A380's Achilles. It would have probably meant no need for the A340-5/600, saving another $2bn.

Mind you, Airbus was going to cock up whichever project came at that point, maybe it was for the best they messed up on the A380 rather than something more core.

Virtual737 wrote:

This is one of those hindsight questions that is a nice exercise but doesn't really have any true value because we can't change history. Heck most of us don't even learn from it.

I don't think it's even a nice exercise. It suggests that Airbus "did something wrong" and I have no idea what that is.

Anyone who thinks the A380 is a dud, for example, which is the implication, either hasn't flown on the A380 or isn't someone who is likely to be a friend of mine.

mariner

As ever a changing 'quick sand' market let down demand for the A380, not the aircraft or design mission itself. In 2000, 9/11 hadn't happened, the collapse on demand for air travel hadn't happened and the financial recession was years away. As with most long ball engineering projects, you have to hit the ground running both at conceptual stage as well as at the delivery stage. I guess Airbus lucked out to some degree at the delivery stage. I'm still not sure why they pursued the A345/6 projects, but purely as an aircraft enthusiast I'm glad they did.

Things are easy in 20/20 hindsight. If the A380 program would have been executed according to plan the situation could have looked a whole lot different today. Break even point, whole program, was planed at 250 frames.

Replacing the A330 at that time would have been a mistake, the best years for the A330 were still to come. The A330/340-200/300 program produced a wide body that sold up to now 1931 frames. Only the 777 has done a little bit better with 1935 frames.

Airbus should have been more bold with the A340NG. A new body, with a bigger diameter and like the original A330/340-200/300 the possibility for four engines and dual engines, a long enough MLG to fit the biggest projected engines planned.

The A380 should have been less ambitious, it should have been a design optimized for the A380-800 size. The plan for the MTOW needed for the freighter increased needlessly dimensioning for basic parts. A smaller MLG 4 x 4, if it would have been possible, would have left more space for freight. The possibility for a stretch of the passenger version would have come by itself through growth in efficiency.

But we see the lessons of the program mistakes being learned by Airbus. The program execution for the A350 is far better than other contemporary similar programs. The offered versions optimized for their respective size. The A350-900 is not a shrink and the A350-1000 not a simple stretch. While not as revolutionary in many points as the 787, both frames are extremely efficient.
One lesson for the design today should perhaps be, do not dimension a frame for the next size up, if it is to be efficient. There are quite a few frames where the stretched first optimized the frame and made a big seller out of it.

The point most often forgotten is, that Airbus was the small producer, confronted by 3 big well established USA producers. Now we talk about a duopoly, with one of the competitors dropped out of the production of commercial aeroplanes and the other two having merged. Now it is the leading company in the production of narrow bodies and a serious competitor in wide bodies.

kitplane01 wrote:

intotheair wrote:

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

Without the A380 no way does Boeing make a clean sheet VLA. And without the A380, there is a reasonable likelihood that this demand goes to additional 787s or 777 instead of the 747-8. Or maybe to the A350 that moves forward in time because Airbus had the A380 money to invest.

If Airbus hadn't started the A380, and (ideally) 9/11 hadn't happened, I think we would have seen the 747-7 &/or -8.5 much sooner and with more resources devoted to them. There was and is a market for large aircraft. All the airlines that operated 747-400 (or older) back then or have bought A380 today would have asked Boeing for a proper replacement of the ageing 747. The 77W's success was far from known, especially considering the extremely poor sales of the original 777-300.

Assuming that we must spend $20B in the 2000-2010 timeframe, there aren't that many opportunities. The small market was taken by Fokker, BAe and soon Embraer. The single aisle market was, and is, well covered by the A319-A320-A321 family. The MOM-area was not the focus it is today, with 767, 757 & A300/A310 ending production and the A321 was far from its current popularity. The next size was well covered by the A330/340 lineup.

The only thing one might have done was to develop the A380 family in the 350-500 PAX segment instead of the 450-650 PAX it carries today. The A340-600 and its inherent flaws wouldn't have happened and the 77W wouldn't have become the standard large widebody for the next two decades.

In 2000 Airbus should have invested in a CATIA (computer aided design software) roll-out across the entire company. People in the A380 program were asking for that, but it only happened after the project was in deep crisis mode. The A380 crisis in turn derailed the A330 Mk I which in turn meant the company had to do A350 as something that could span the A350-800 to A350-1000 (or beyond) range, which is too much to ask for one design. In the ideal world Airbus would have cranked out the A380 on plan, done the A350 Mk I as a true A330 NEO, and put the big bucks into making the A350 something that could have taken out the 77W sooner and covered up to 779 size.

mariner wrote:

Virtual737 wrote:

This is one of those hindsight questions that is a nice exercise but doesn't really have any true value because we can't change history. Heck most of us don't even learn from it.

I don't think it's even a nice exercise. It suggests that Airbus "did something wrong" and I have no idea what that is.

Anyone who thinks the A380 is a dud, for example, which is the implication, either hasn't flown on the A380 or isn't someone who is likely to be a friend of mine.

mariner

Like it or not, the A380's passing will be another example of the type of "progress" you call out in the 747 thread. Airbus (over)built it, the market found homes for ~250 or so as opposed to the much higher predictions Airbus had, and both the market and the vendors learned a lot of things that will shape the future aviation industry.

KFLLCFII wrote:

They shouldn't have invested in updating the A340 either.

Taking the funds from both of those projects could have led to a clean-sheet 777NG killer (while discontinuing the A340) and possibly enough to spare for a clean-sheet 737NG killer by replacing the A320 series.

So in other words,

• shut down & replace the long haul program whose oldest member had been flying for a mere 7 years
  and
• shut down & replace the short haul program whose oldest member had been flying for a mere 12 years

leaving the company with an aging "MoM" niche program which was already on its way out (A300/A310)?
And knowing that the replacements would be more or less identical, apart from some local changes here & there, because technology hadn't evolved that much ?

Doesn't sound like a great idea to me

More seriously, the Airbus line-up in 1999 actually seemed quite good : from the A319 on the bottom to the A340-300 on top, it covered everything from 130 to 300 passengers with products which were mostly under 12years, and all quite state-of-the-art. Programs to extend the family at the bottom (A318) and top (A340-500/600) were on their way and promising on paper. The 737NG was just coming on line after a difficult production start, the 777 was very good but the great 77W only existed on paper.
The only big "hole" in the Airbus product line was at the top, where at the time the 747 was still selling quite well (on average 35 units a year before 9/11) and creating comfortable margins which Boeing could re-inject into other programs competing against Airbus.
All in all, as of December 1999, launching a product in this class made perfect sense. What is debatable is the sizing decision, i.e. directly making the smallest member twice the capacity as the biggest available aircraft of the time, and sizing the design for future growth on top. Be it hubris or a future-proofing strategy fueld by some overconfidence, I do not know...but it is clearly the major mistake.

Revelation wrote:

In 2000 Airbus should have invested in a CATIA (computer aided design software) roll-out across the entire company. People in the A380 program were asking for that, but it only happened after the project was in deep crisis mode.

Yes from the outside, but remember that "Airbus" at the time was not a single company but a loose association of 4 national champions. Each with its own incumbent design processes, and the resulting methods and design tools [keep in mind that 2 companies may have the same software, like CATIA v5 for instance, but use it in very different ways]. And long-standing companies are never very motivated to touch those...
Even if a common pact to align the PLM could be agreed, it would still take years for it to be implemented up to a point where a single 3D editor software could be agreed upon.

I actually think that by bringing the huge underlying issues out into the open, the A380 actually served as a catalyst for integration. Nothing like a good disaster to motivate people to change.
Painful and (very) expensive for sure, but as mentioned above, at least it's better for the problems to come out on a limited-production program than on a potential cash-machine.

Airbus was launched on the premis of a large widebodied twin engined aircraft.As such they had good knowledge of this technology.They should have stuck with this winning formula instead of looking backwards to quads. The original 340 was based on the idea of a super efficient 'superfan'(a geared engine).So this is excusable.Perhaps it was too late when the engine concept collapsed.On that basis the original 340 can be excused.

But at that point they took a very wrong turning with both the 340-600 and the 380-800.They have now got the 350 which covers the 346 mistake.
As for the 388.I think they should have gone to the engine manufacturers to see whether a v large engine was possible (then) and have built something akin to what a 777-10 would be.But back then carbon wings of that size (let alone engine) was not technology they possessed.

About the A340. The mistake to go 4 engines was already done, so a more reasonable stretch to 70-72m and 300-320t MTOW to fit between the 77E and 77W would have made sense to 2017 me. The 77w was and is still too big for a lot of airlines.

About the A380. They knew in 2000 that they had a huge weight problem. I think that also made them optimise it for a too large stretch. They should have gone 2 steps back and make it the first CFRP plane with EIS in 2008-10 instead of the last Al clean sheet. Still 8 - 10 abreast, Optimised 73m, smaller wing area, MTOW 500t.
Would have meant lots of investment in manufacturing but the A350XWB would have come easier in 2014.
If only...love the A380
BTW update the software in Spain and Germany

Year 2000 is within internet memory. Projects studied at the time

A330 NEO
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airbus-has-informal-talks-over-use-of-gp7000-on-gr-69061/

A320NEO
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pw-plans-pw8000-first-run-for-1999-33271/

Airbus rules out a further stretch of the A321
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airbus-development-set-to-go-down-widebody-route-145823/

The hindsight analysis depends also what kind of negotiation power they had on engine manufacturers and other suppliers, i.e. would the desired engines have been there when I want. Probably there would have been at least suboptimal engines for all tasks.

I would have made (not all at once, though):
- 350 (like Mk1) i.e. larger twin with the same body diameter as 330 and more powerful engines (when such were ready)
- 360 as a larger widebody (3+3+3 or 3+4+3), maybe with two setups as twin and quad, to challenge 777 from above.
- 322/323, with a larger wing
- 100-150 seated prop
- and of course all NEOS as done, likely earlier, depending on engine availability

Probably I would not have spent all that additional 20 billion for that, so I would be left with some billions for something else. Another military project?

Good links Keesje.
As for the A321/2 stretch perhaps it's time has finally come.Probably wouldn't have been a good idea way back then.Mind you such old links do make for interesting reading particularly regarding the 380 programme.

mxaxai wrote:

kitplane01 wrote:

intotheair wrote:

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

Without the A380 no way does Boeing make a clean sheet VLA. And without the A380, there is a reasonable likelihood that this demand goes to additional 787s or 777 instead of the 747-8. Or maybe to the A350 that moves forward in time because Airbus had the A380 money to invest.

If Airbus hadn't started the A380, and (ideally) 9/11 hadn't happened, I think we would have seen the 747-7 &/or -8.5 much sooner and with more resources devoted to them. There was and is a market for large aircraft. All the airlines that operated 747-400 (or older) back then or have bought A380 today would have asked Boeing for a proper replacement of the ageing 747. The 77W's success was far from known, especially considering the extremely poor sales of the original 777-300.

The next version of the 747 would need to be significantly better than the 747-8. It would need to offer better CASM than the 787 to succeed, which the current 747-8 does not.

mxaxai wrote:

Assuming that we must spend $20B in the 2000-2010 timeframe, there aren't that many opportunities. The small market was taken by Fokker, BAe and soon Embraer. The single aisle market was, and is, well covered by the A319-A320-A321 family. The MOM-area was not the focus it is today, with 767, 757 & A300/A310 ending production and the A321 was far from its current popularity. The next size was well covered by the A330/340 lineup.

The only thing one might have done was to develop the A380 family in the 350-500 PAX segment instead of the 450-650 PAX it carries today. The A340-600 and its inherent flaws wouldn't have happened and the 77W wouldn't have become the standard large widebody for the next two decades.

This sounds right to me.

airmagnac wrote:

Revelation wrote:

In 2000 Airbus should have invested in a CATIA (computer aided design software) roll-out across the entire company. People in the A380 program were asking for that, but it only happened after the project was in deep crisis mode.

Yes from the outside, but remember that "Airbus" at the time was not a single company but a loose association of 4 national champions. Each with its own incumbent design processes, and the resulting methods and design tools [keep in mind that 2 companies may have the same software, like CATIA v5 for instance, but use it in very different ways]. And long-standing companies are never very motivated to touch those...
Even if a common pact to align the PLM could be agreed, it would still take years for it to be implemented up to a point where a single 3D editor software could be agreed upon.

I actually think that by bringing the huge underlying issues out into the open, the A380 actually served as a catalyst for integration. Nothing like a good disaster to motivate people to change.
Painful and (very) expensive for sure, but as mentioned above, at least it's better for the problems to come out on a limited-production program than on a potential cash-machine.

Yes indeed, the positive aftermath of the A380 train wreck is a more united Airbus.

Note that Boeing had a similar "come to Jesus" moment in the late 90s when the 737 production line got so fouled up that they had to stop everything and reboot it. From what I read in the aviation press, that was used as an opportunity to install much better controls/processes around the production line. In particular, fewer customizations were allowed. I can imagine some of our esteemed a.net members have more insights on this than I do.

The A340 should have been replaced with a clean sheet design to seriously challenge the 777. That was and is Airbus's big screw up.

The 777 has gone on to become the most successful widebody in history while Airbus knew the A340 was a compromised design from the start due to the engine issue, and as a result the original 777 went on to out sell the A340 by 6 to 1 and dominate the upper end of the market for two decades.

ElroyJetson wrote:

The A340 should have been replaced with a clean sheet design to seriously challenge the 777. That was and is Airbus's big screw up.

The 777 has gone on to become the most successful widebody in history while Airbus knew the A340 was a compromised design from the start due to the engine issue, and as a result the original 777 went on to out sell the A340 by 6 to 1 and dominate the upper end of the market for two decades.

Not that it matters much, but this one gets my vote.

JannEejit wrote:

As ever a changing 'quick sand' market let down demand for the A380, not the aircraft or design mission itself. In 2000, 9/11 hadn't happened, the collapse on demand for air travel hadn't happened and the financial recession was years away.

Exactly! And this has A LOT to do with why the A380 has not sold to expectations. A lot of the anti-A380 crowd seems to forget this little important fact. And then fuel prices rose to record highs. The setbacks have just made put the A380 ahead of it's time.
Airbus's biggest mistake here was making the -900 the base model.

Other than that, can't say Airbus should have done anything different. Fuel prices are down and are expected to stay down long term now. If Airbus relaunches the A380plus with a moderate stretch, redesigned wings, and new engines, it will be fine.

kitplane01 wrote:

On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380. Suppose instead they decide to invest in some other program. What *should* they have invested in? And could you have known then? You have about €20 Bn to invest.

Easy the A-350.

intotheair wrote:

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

Boeing went with the 787 because they believed, correctly, that the future belonged to a medium capacity twin that was efficient. That is after they floated the Sonic Cruiser.

Bald1983 wrote:

intotheair wrote:

I still think had Airbus not gone ahead with what became the A380, then Boeing would have gone ahead with the double decker 747 or a clean sheet VLA, and we still would be sitting here with a relative financial flop of a plane.

Boeing went with the 787 because they believed, correctly, that the future belonged to a medium capacity twin that was efficient. That is after they floated the Sonic Cruiser.

I think the choice was put the money in the 787 or the Sonic Cruiser. They wasn't going to do both.

I honestly think if they'd gone for the Sonic Cruiser it would of been a failure. I just couldn't see it selling in great numbers, it would of been something brand new to the market and something echoing the concorde sales failure, but I think if Concorde had sold in large numbers, It wouldn't be the plane it is today.

sofianec wrote:

Back in 2000 Airbus was contemplating making a new A330 with Al-Li body instead of CFRP. If they had gone that way the A330AlLi would have decimated the 787, especially with the neo upgrade later. This move would have given them great flexibility with a larger A350 down the road.

A380 was a done deal albeit a flop.

So in 2000 Airbus would have designed a frame that would decimate the 787 we have today, what exactly was the current 787 back in 2000 and why would Boeing not view what Airbus was doing and act accordingly?

Speculation is fine, however, since we are going back in time the same logic has to apply to both OEM's as such, the 787 of today would not exist in our alternate universe.
So with the 777 ramping and the A340 and 747 not doing as well Airbus would????

kitplane01 wrote:

On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380..

It should also be noted that on the 19th December 2000, I left my twenties behind and became a thirty-something. A far greater tragedy than anything that beset the Airbus programme, I can tell you !

JannEejit wrote:

kitplane01 wrote:

On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380..

It should also be noted that on the 19th December 2000, I left my twenties behind and became a thirty-something. A far greater tragedy than anything that beset the Airbus programme, I can tell you !

Heh.

Growing old is a terrible fate, indeed, but it beats the alternative by a considerable margin!

ElroyJetson wrote:

The A340 should have been replaced with a clean sheet design to seriously challenge the 777. That was and is Airbus's big screw up.

The 777 has gone on to become the most successful widebody in history while Airbus knew the A340 was a compromised design from the start due to the engine issue, and as a result the original 777 went on to out sell the A340 by 6 to 1 and dominate the upper end of the market for two decades.

I see a lot of people here calling the A380 a 'flop', but with over 200 frames built (and still counting) it's already much better performing than Airbus' biggest flop: the A345/A346. It was a rubbish aircraft from the beginning and never a serious competitor of the 77W. With only 131 built and quite a lot of them retired and stored already, the A345/A346 was Airbus' true failure, not the A380.

BasilFawlty wrote:

I see a lot of people here calling the A380 a 'flop', but with over 200 frames built (and still counting) it's already much better performing than Airbus' biggest flop: the A345/A346. It was a rubbish aircraft from the beginning and never a serious competitor of the 77W. With only 131 built and quite a lot of them retired and stored already, the A345/A346 was Airbus' true failure, not the A380.

I agree with you.
In my opinion, Airbus should have invested in A330-500 & A330-600 instead of A340-500 & A340-600.
The A380 is not a flop in my opinion, it is the biggest, most powerful, most capable, most comfortable airliner ever made! And so far one of the quietest... Made by Airbus!

Without Emirates the A380 would have been Airbus's biggest flop. The A318 comes in second but the loses are much less.

BasilFawlty wrote:

I see a lot of people here calling the A380 a 'flop', but with over 200 frames built (and still counting) it's already much better performing than Airbus' biggest flop: the A345/A346. It was a rubbish aircraft from the beginning and never a serious competitor of the 77W. With only 131 built and quite a lot of them retired and stored already, the A345/A346 was Airbus' true failure, not the A380.

It depends on the metric. Which one blew the biggest hole?

Amazon stock. It went from 15.56 to 987.78 USD, so those 20B EUR would be worth around 1,200B EUR or enough money to buy Boeing (plus many politicians), close shop and still be awfully rich.

This is a fantasy thread, so the fact that those 20B EUR would have bought more Amazon shares than ever existed doesn't really matter.

Revelation wrote:

Like it or not, the A380's passing will be another example of the type of "progress" you call out in the 747 thread. Airbus (over)built it, the market found homes for ~250 or so as opposed to the much higher predictions Airbus had, and both the market and the vendors learned a lot of things that will shape the future aviation industry.

Okay. I don't recall arguing with any of that. so I'm not sure what point you trying to make.

It may pan out differently in this case because the future has'lt happened yet and I don't have the remarkable ability of so many a.netters to predict the future.

mariner

Sharklets for the A330/A320 series. MTOW increase for the A330. If totally crazy a A300/310NEO with new engines and wings.

Virtual737 wrote:

What *should* Airbus have invested in (year 2000)?

PayPal and Google. They could have kept most of the €20 Bn in the bank too and just made planes for fun today.

This is one of those hindsight questions that is a nice exercise but doesn't really have any true value because we can't change history. Heck most of us don't even learn from it.

Evaluating past decisions is one way of learning.

You posted to tell us that the thread was not worth posting in. In the future it's OK if you just skip to the next thread.

mariner wrote:

Virtual737 wrote:

This is one of those hindsight questions that is a nice exercise but doesn't really have any true value because we can't change history. Heck most of us don't even learn from it.

I don't think it's even a nice exercise. It suggests that Airbus "did something wrong" and I have no idea what that is.

Anyone who thinks the A380 is a dud, for example, which is the implication, either hasn't flown on the A380 or isn't someone who is likely to be a friend of mine.

mariner

Ahh. I'll frame the question more clearly. Suppose Airbus wanted to make money in the airplane business. What should Airbus have invested in that would have made more money that the A380?

carl50mq wrote:

BasilFawlty wrote:

I see a lot of people here calling the A380 a 'flop', but with over 200 frames built (and still counting) it's already much better performing than Airbus' biggest flop: the A345/A346. It was a rubbish aircraft from the beginning and never a serious competitor of the 77W. With only 131 built and quite a lot of them retired and stored already, the A345/A346 was Airbus' true failure, not the A380.

I agree with you.
In my opinion, Airbus should have invested in A330-500 & A330-600 instead of A340-500 & A340-600.
The A380 is not a flop in my opinion, it is the biggest, most powerful, most capable, most comfortable airliner ever made! And so far one of the quietest... Made by Airbus!

I guess it depends on how you measure "flop". For Aibus, If you measure it in least units sold, the A318 sucks. But if you measure it by most money lost, the A380 is the worst.

Summary so far:

Airbus should have
(1) Done a A320neo. But was better engine technology available?
(2) Done an A330 redo, with more carbon fiber and the-new engines
(3) Moved the A350 forward, which would have been a new size point for Airbus then
(4) Done a better A380, sized more like a 747 or a 747+
(5) Spent the money on Amazon stock.

My current best guess is that (3) is the best idea, followed by a tie for (4) or (2).
#5 does not count!!!!

kitplane01 wrote:

Ahh. I'll frame the question more clearly. Suppose Airbus wanted to make money in the airplane business. What should Airbus have invested in that would have made more money that the A380?

I've no idea because now there are two hypotheticals at work and I was already having trouble with one. I don't like these hypotheticals of which some a.netters seem so overly fond.

IF you see the main function of Airbus is to be a rival for Boeing, then it goes in one direction. A safe, non-threatening pretend competitor that doesn't take any risks.

If you have a different view of Airbus, as I do, then it goes in other, interesting directions. As it did with the A380.

It could have gone the supersonic way - wouldn't that have been fun? Oh, my word, I'd have loved to see that.

The great puzzle to me about all the negativity surrounding the A380 is that most people completely lost their sense of humour about it.

mariner

mariner wrote:

kitplane01 wrote:

Ahh. I'll frame the question more clearly. Suppose Airbus wanted to make money in the airplane business. What should Airbus have invested in that would have made more money that the A380?

I've no idea because now there are two hypotheticals at work and I was already having trouble with one. I don't like these hypotheticals of which some a.netters seem so overly fond.

IF you see the main function of Airbus is to be a rival for Boeing, then it goes in one direction. A safe, non-threatening pretend competitor that doesn't take any risks.

If you have a different view of Airbus, as I do, then it goes in other, interesting directions. As it did with the A380.

It could have gone the supersonic way - wouldn't that have been fun? Oh, my word, I'd have loved to see that.

The great puzzle to me about all the negativity surrounding the A380 is that most people completely lost their sense of humour about it.

mariner

The main purpose of Airbus is to make money. That's the metric we evaluate them on.

Both the Concorde and the A380 lost their builders complete barnloads of cash. But the Concorde built this very unique thing, and the A380 is kind of the same thing, only 20% bigger. The problem is not the A380 (the plane) but the lost opportunities.

KrustyTheKlown wrote:

Amazon stock. It went from 15.56 to 987.78 USD, so those 20B EUR would be worth around 1,200B EUR or enough money to buy Boeing (plus many politicians), close shop and still be awfully rich.

This is a fantasy thread, so the fact that those 20B EUR would have bought more Amazon shares than ever existed doesn't really matter.

In that spirit, they should have bought Tesla and Uber as well. Yearly losses would have been equal to the A380 program, but at least stock value would have been skyhigh. And the combined companies would have transported more people and cargo than the A380 ever will.

KFLLCFII wrote:

kitplane01 wrote:

On 19 December, 2000, the Airbus board of directors decided to invest in the A380. Suppose instead they decide to invest in some other program. What *should* they have invested in? And could you have known then? You have about €20 Bn to invest.

I'll take it one step further: They shouldn't have invested in updating the A340 either.

Taking the funds from both of those projects could have led to a clean-sheet 777NG killer (while discontinuing the A340) and possibly enough to spare for a clean-sheet 737NG killer by replacing the A320 series.

The only thing left for Boeing would have been the mid market (as the 747's coffin nails were already being driven), and as their cash flow would have been significantly restricted in comparison without the 777NG/737NG printing presses, their ability to follow through on a clean-sheet 787 may not have even been practical...At best, their only option may have been a new wing & engine program on the 767 to better compete with the maturing A330, which would hardly have been as successful as the 787 was against the same A330 (the 787's delays notwithstanding). As for the 757, it was nearly (if not at) a zero-order state already by that time, and probably would have faded away just the same.

Had Airbus not jumped for the A380 and A340NG, Boeing probably would have been looking more like McDonnell-Douglas was in the late 80s into the early 90s.

The A340 as a design could have been Morphed to give the B777 a Real run for it's money. When Airbus didn't go in full force with the ETOPS model back in the day they put themselves at a disadvantage. And? Even though they've made good strides in matching Boeing, They didn't get in on the ETOPS or EROPS frenzy until recently where to majority of the technology went in Boeing's direction causing Airbus to have to "Reverse Engineer" a lot of Equivalent technologies with a lot of cumbersome engineering while Boeing is just moving ahead with purely advanced systems.
Airbus has done well though and their systems are reliable though they have to go "Around the Bend and through the Dale" sometimes to JUST get across the Street..
Many times I've wished Airbus and Boeing could share technology. Because there'd be NOBODY that could come close if they did (with the exception of Boeing, Northrop/Grumman and Lockheed-Martin)

kitplane01 wrote:

The main purpose of Airbus is to make money. That's the metric we evaluate them on.

That's a very American view of the world, and I'm not American. While it may be the metric you use, it isn't mine.

But since Airbus, the corporation, makes money, it doesn't matter if one component - the A400M say - doesn't. And if Airbus - the corporation - stops making money it is likely to be because of the A400. Those civil airliners seem to keep chugging along - LOL.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/airbus ... 2017-02-22

"Airbus profit hit by charge on A400M program"

mariner

kitplane01 wrote:

Summary so far:

Airbus should have
(1) Done a A320neo. But was better engine technology available?
(2) Done an A330 redo, with more carbon fiber and the-new engines
(3) Moved the A350 forward, which would have been a new size point for Airbus then
(4) Done a better A380, sized more like a 747 or a 747+
(5) Spent the money on Amazon stock.

My current best guess is that (3) is the best idea, followed by a tie for (4) or (2).
#5 does not count!!!!

The list above is strange.

(1) The A320neo. In the year 2000 the A320 used the most modern available than.
(2) The A330 is still competitive today, in the year 2000 it was 8 years old, the most modern midsized wide body twin available.
(3) It was the year 2000, quite a bit of the technology used on the A350 was not available than
(4) I would rather have seen a A380 sized for the A380-800 size and not for expansion. But the main change would have been to get the execution of the program right.
(5) Airbus is an airplain producer, not an investment company.

In the year 2000, in hindsight, I would have done instead of an A340NG a new frame, slightly wider than a 777 for a comfortable 10 across, with a wing build like the A330/340-200/300 for both four engines and two engines. With an MLG high enough to fit future big engines. Two length, one like the 777-300 and one filling the 80m box. The four engine version would have faded as the available engines size would have grown.

It seems that is still underrated what Airbus did with the A330/340. One fuselage, two length, option for 4 or 2 engines. At a time when it was not clear how regulators would look at the use of twins for flights using ETOPS above 120. If we exclude the A340NG and the 330neo and only look at the original design, the A330/340-200/300 only, same fuselage, same wing, option for 4 or 2 engines, that was a pretty successful design having sold 1.721 frames up to now, if we add the A340NG and the A330neo, we are at 2062 frames.

The mistake was not designing the A330 and the A340, but trying with one family to cover the competition from the 767-300ER up to the 777-300ER with one family only with adding the A340NG.