Bigger is not better

I think that because of it's size it will be limited to where it can land.

You are correct that the edges of runways may need to be stabilised to accommodate that wingspan, but that is not such a big deal. In all other respects the A380 was designed to be capable of taking off and landing on any runway that would accommodate a Boeing 747.

The bigger issue would appear to be the increased separation that is needed between aircraft at take-off and landing, but the new distances mean it is still effective as regards passenger numbers. (The effect on human queues of the increased peakiness of demand remains to be seen).

As Jack of.. says, per person fuel consumption will be less in A380, thus air travel should cost less.

Per person carbon emmission also will be less, thus good in view of Global warming, provided the plane is occupied sufficiently.

Crashes are enivitable.. but, as JOAT says, if you see the human life loss percentages, it is least in air travel.

We should take more and more care about possible terrorist activities, instead of working under fear of terrorists. Otherwise, no developments are possible.

The idea of being crammed into a too-small cylinder for several hours with 800 strangers sounds even less appealing to me than the idea of being crammed into a too-small cylinder filled with 200 strangers, especially since the cylinder with 800 strangers crammed in is not likely to be getting me any closer to my destination, thus further increasing the time wasted in getting from point A to point B (not counting the additional time it will take on the ground to get all those 800 people stuffed into the cylinder in the first place).

Now, the Concorde- that makes sense to me. Less time from A to B. With the exception of one final incident, a plane with a perfect safety record...I guess it was just too good an idea to survive...

Hi cwarner,

At least the Concord accident was a fault with runway debris and not airframe failure.

I would be less inclined to fly Air Bus it has a lot of proving to do yet in my book, early well tested models would be more to my liking providing they had not been run into the ground so to speak.

I am not favorably inclined to flying nowadays anyway as I suspect that the quality of maintenance is not as good as it used to be. I am sure somebody will want to disagree with me so go ahead and shoot me down.

GA for a good answer.

If Air France had fitted the special deflector plates that had been developed for water & debris as BA did, maybe Concorde would still be running today.........

I believe that Concorde had pretty-much reached end of life, and had never been particularly profitable. So I guess that the peak in oil price would have been the excuse to kill it if it had not been dead already.

(Concorde!!!?? French-English co-operation? No there's a novel thought)

At the prices they were charging, I would have been surprised if it had lost that much really and for those rich enough, it was the perfect answer. They would have just had an escuse to double (triple?) the prices......when you are REALLY rich, the price is unimportant.......

Guest, I can say unequivocally that you are poor!!!! Like most of us!!!

Although:-

I once had breakfast in the UK, lunch in Cairo and back in time for a leasurely tea in the UK.......present from a rich Brother-in-law for the whole family, 1978 or thereabouts......only a short time supersonic due to France being overflown....

Here is a link from the mid 80's that shows that the aircraft broke even when only 40-45% full, after losing money for some years before that. lord Ling managed to get it to make money after buying them from the British Government. When you think that the aircraft flew mostly completely full across the Atlantic, it looked like it made money......at least in the 80's....probably the 90's too and the early 2000's....

British Airways Concorde

Wikipedia has a big article that seems to cover almost everything:-

wiki - Concorde

Being crammed in with 799 other passengars (assuming the plane is not stuck on the tarmac for hours because of a snow storm, etc.). The later would be worse.

While crashes are inevitable, fatalities are not. It's been two years since an airliner crash proved fatal - a new record.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-01-11-airlinesafety_N.htm

Just FYI...

<It's been two years since an airliner crash proved fatal - a new record.> binkyninja

The pilot of the aircraft that splash-landed in the Hudson River (New York/USA) recently has contributed to that record. That such an understated individual should receive so much praise is remarkable in itself. It is also a credit to the aircraft designer that such a structure can survive an impact of this type while preserving the life of every soul on board.

Unfortunately it doesn't really matter what makes more sense, the airline industry is pretty well locked into a hub system and not interested in the investment necessary to do anything else... This means they need to cram us in like sardines and route us through a half dozen other airports on our way to our destination in order to be profitable.

Personally I think we would all be better served if airlines ran MUCH smaller planes and did away with the hub system (so you don't have to fly from Chicago to LA to get to Phoenix, for example, because your chosen airline doesn't have a hub in Phoenix, and the airlines that hub in Phoenix don't have one in Chicago (ok, bad example, just about everyone hubs in Chicago but you get the idea)) This would mean more planes in the air and would be a total nightmare for the FAA trying to figure routes but it would shorten travel time and reduce potential terrorist related casualties making all us travelers much happier. But, like I say this would require a complete overhaul of the air travel industry which is not good business from a strictly capitalistic (greedy s.o.b) point of view.

If you want to triple the costs of a ticket (at least)!!!

Larger planes = lower costs per passenger mile.

Fewer destinations also contribute to lower costs....as the planes will be fuller.....

The only answer for you is what the film stars and other rich people do, buy your own plane, rent a pilot etc. and go direct.

John Travolta can probably give you a few tips.......he is also a qualified pilot, so he saves a few $$$ by flying himself everywhere.....

I don't think the entire problem is filling the planes - people don't always need the frequency that is currently provided.

I think the real problem is one of organisation - regular daily (or more frequent) flights between specific locations make it easier to leave the planes where you next need them, and recovery from a glitch is relatively straightforward. If you wanted to route routine flights between pairs of non-hub locations, many of these flights would not be frequent enough to organise as round trips - so you'd need long, complex paths. Keeping that organised is an NP problem - and the consequences of a cancellation (for whatever cause) would propagate throughout the multi-day route of the aircraft.

As a follow up to my previous post to qualify what I said, It is news that Quanta's has discovered ANOTHER unqualified engineer signing off on inspections !! the other one was about 18 months ago.

You would have to ask yourself what is the intelligence level of the persons who were responsible for the placement of these "engineers" and to some degree how knowledgeable where the engineers with whom he worked to not have noticed something . The good thing he was caught so someone did his job.

Then you must consider how widespread is this bad practice worldwide where company's are run by poorly educated department heads or just as bad a lack of integrity. It is a wold wide trend the quality of a lot of equipment and consumer products is going down the drain. I wonder if governments will try to ratify these problems to avoid greenhouse gas production or just keep taxing us for it and the problem remains.

Passenger ships are looking a much better option to me at the moment.

Like the Titanic maybe?

Good point, but at least I can swim better than I can fly.