The End of A380 Production. Why? My View
I was personally saddened last week to learn of the planned closure of A380 production as it was the first transport aircraft programme to which I made a contribution through work at RR on the Trent 900: I was also involved in the later 'A380neo' studies.
I have given some thought to why this has happened and identified 4 keywords that I believe are the main causes:
Boeing
Requirements
Delay
Subprime
Boeing
Before any 'Seattlites' get too excited and start 'high-fiving' and saying 'Good Jaaarb', I am talking about the normal competitive process that keeps pushing both Airbus and Boeing to make great aeroplanes. Indeed, Boeing were concerned enough with the A380 threat to launch the 747-8 that also has not been a runaway sales success - although it consumed much lower programme costs.
Requirements
Decisions made on the conceptual/preliminary design phase added as much as ~5% to the A380-800 fuel consumption figures based on my RAWAvCon analysis. These decisions were taken to enhance broader aspects of the aircraft programme although with the benefit of hindsight maybe different choices would have been made to benefit fuel burn.
There are 3 major requirement decisions:
A3XX-200: The A380 wing and engines were sized for a potential stretched variant carrying ~650 seats (~100 more than the A380-800). It was called the A3XX-200 with an initial MTOM planned at 610t and a substantially higher MLW.
The larger wing and engines required for the A3XX-200 added 2.5-3% fuel burn (RAWAvCon analysis). A point designed A380-800 would have be ~15t OEW and ~20t MTOW lighter as well a little less drag (less wetted area) for a consistent payload range capability. A detail wing-design study may increase this benefit as the 80m span would be less constraining.
The market for the stretch version never materialised so with the benefit of hindsight, this decision could be questioned. However, the choice of multiple fuselage lengths was natural and been followed in almost every successful aircraft programme, before and since the A380, to increase the number of sales to book against the a very minor increase in the overall programme development costs.
4 Engines would still have been required due to overall thrust levels needed. However, the double deck fuselage packages the payload very efficiently (low wetted area per passenger).
Noise: The A380 engine fan diameter was increased relatively late in the programme to guarantee QC2 noise status - a quick look at EASA noise certification numbers shows the step change in noise at a weight achieved by the A380. Increasing the fan diameter from 110" to 116" also improved the SFC, although RAWAvCon analysis suggest that the increased engine drag and weight ultimately increased block fuel by ~1%.
If the A3XX-200 requirements had not been included, gaining QC2 status may also have been easier.
Comfort: The A330/A340 had bigger economy seats that the 767/747: the 777 had bigger seats than the A330/A340: the A380 had bigger seats than the 777. This was the direction of progress, until the A380.
Since then, the seat sizes have been reducing on the 787/777X and to a lesser extent on the A350. The A380 is popular with passengers but they will not pay a sufficient premium for the extra comfort to make the A380 more attractive to airlines.
A decision on narrower seats may have resulted in lower drag (less fuselage wetted area, less fuselage impact on the span wise lift distribution) and maybe lower fuselage mass. It is not clear whether comfort in terms of pitch could shorten the fuselage due to trim requirements with a reasonably sized tail on low fineness ratio (Length/Diameter) fuselage.
Delay
Of 120 A380 aircraft originally scheduled for delivery by the end of 2009, only 37 were delivered due to a number of delays in development programme (some self-inflicted). Over 80 aircraft that should have been in-service were not as the financial crisis effects were being felt. This had 3 major effects
Programme costs: The payments from customers for ~80 aircraft were not sat in Airbus's bank and the increased development costs during the delay and the interest on the original development costs were mounting. This is likely to have reduced the scope for Airbus to make aircraft price concessions to support the programme.
Less near term delivery slots: The delay in delivering the early aircraft meant that near term delivery slots were harder to find in the 2007-2012 timescale as Airbus tried to catch up with existing orders. To put this context, the 80 aircraft delivery deficit at the end of 2009 represented 2-3 years of the aircraft's planned production (at full production rate)
Less incumbency: More aircraft in service with more airlines at the start of the financial crisis might have meant a broader appeal to grow these existing fleets as the global economy recovered.
Subprime - 'Financial Crisis' was 2 words.
Last but by no means least, the A380 programme entered service on the 27th April, just over 3 weeks after the 1st US subprime lender filed for bankruptcy - the start of 2-3 years of the 'Global Financial Crisis'. This greatly reduced the sales prospects for the aircraft at a critical time in the programme. Both the 787 and A350 saw significant new sales success in the 2-3 years after EIS in the upswing after the financial crisis.
Specific effects include:
Loss of Premium Traffic: Many organisations placed limits on their staff using business class travel thus removing what was expected to be a major revenue source for A380 operations (drawn by the greatly enhanced comfort standards).
Airline Confidence: During times of great uncertainty, airlines (like any other sector) are less likely to make make major investments and the A380 size made it a major investment. Smaller aircraft can be used more flexibly to adjust to potentially shifting demand.
Access to funding: Banks fund the vast majority of aircraft purchases. The banks did not know how much cash they had to invest so were not inclined to fund multi-billion dollar aircraft purchases even if airlines wanted to buy aircraft.
Post Crisis Airline Business: Since the financial crisis, aircraft seat size and pitch have followed a reducing trend, away from the high A380 comfort levels as airlines look to squeeze ever more seats into fixed cabin sizes ('Densification'). This was considered for the A380 but did not help as it results in >600 seats, too many for most routes.
Summary
Any of these four effects will put a dent into any aircraft programme, but all four together made it very difficult to succeed. In particular, I feel that the timing of the Global Financial Crisis is probably the critical factor that caused last week's announcement to curtail A380 production.
Without doubt there are other effects that can be claimed as playing a role, e.g. the lack of 2nd tier airlines wanting to purchase used A380s (high introductory costs), lack of sales in China and India, increasing runway capacity to avoid airport capacity constraints but these are probably linked somehow or follow on from the general headings above.
I shall keep looking skyward whenever I hear or see an A380.
