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The Story of Airbus A380 (Why did A380 Fail)? The Airbus A380 is easily the world’s largest passenger aircraft. With a seating capacity of 550 (For Editor : In normal seating configuration) and a range of 15000 km, this plane is truly an engineering marvel. The spacious cabin and the barely audible engines allowed the passengers to enjoy every bit of their journey. Half of all the A380s manufactured by Airbus have been acquired by Emirates Airline. They were also interested in buying more aircrafts and had requested Airbus to design the next generation of A380. Still, Airbus has decided to stop the production of A380s by 2021. What’s interesting is that, this decision was taken even before the pandemic that has devastated airlines all over the world. Wonder why? Let’s see the story of the marvel that is Airbus A380 and its future in this video. Boeing and Airbus are the two major players in the commercial aircraft manufacturing business. The rivalry between these two has been one for the ages. These companies cater to the needs of airlines around the world, and build different models of aircrafts. In the early days, all companies scrambled to bring faster and faster airplanes to the market. The Concorde was a result of this rush. However, neither the exhilarating speed nor the astonishing luxury could save the Concorde as it was never financially viable. What the common man wanted was to have an affordable flight in an aircraft that offered basic comfort. Realizing this need, Boeing introduced its 747 series into the market which could carry more than 400 passengers. It was only with the introduction of the 747, that air travel became more accessible to the general public. Thanks to the Boeing 747, more and more people started to rely on flying as a mode of travel for long distance journeys. For the next 30 years, the Boeing 747 practically ruled the long distance market. Airbus wanted to get a hold of this market, and in the 1990s, they decided to build a plane bigger than the 747. More than 50 different Airlines placed orders for the aircraft right after the announcement of the project. Enamored with this, Airbus started designing the aircraft. The size of the plane threw a different set of challenges. Unique designs had to be explored to carry more number of passengers. The initial plan was to juxtapose the fuselages of two A340s to form one single fuselage. However, the aircraft with this design would have weighed too much, and it had to be abandoned. The double decker design that we see today was developed after this. The Boeing 747 too had 2 decks – but, the upper deck was only half the length of the plane. The A380’s fuselage was very cleverly designed, keeping in mind the need for two separate decks of the similar length. To reduce costs, Airbus reused parts from their other models as much as possible. These parts were designed by more than 1500 companies from 50 countries around the world. As with other Airbus models, most of the A380’s assembly took place in UK, Germany, France and Spain. Airbus’s own specially designed aircraft, the Beluga was used to transport the parts for the final assembly in Toulouse, France. However, since the A380 is a massive aircraft, it was impossible to fit many of its large parts into the Beluga. A special route that connects roads, the Atlantic sea and inland canals had to be created in Europe just to enable the logistics of A380. The life of an A380 starts in Germany from where the fuselage and the vertical tail section are transported by road and then onto roll-on/roll-off ships. The vessel then sails to the UK from where engines and wings are picked up, and then heads to France. The ship finally heads to Pauillac (For Vocal : pronounced Poyac), once the control systems are collected from elsewhere in France. From here, the parts are transported by barge and by road to its final destination in Toulouse. The same vessel also transports the horizontal tail section from Spain to Toulouse. To facilitate the smooth transportation of the massive parts of A380, canals and roads on the route were expanded and new barges were built. The end product of this assembly, the majestic A380, is truly a magnificent machine. At 73 meters in length, and with an 80 meter wingspan, this massive aircraft’s tail is as tall as a 7-storey building. 4 powerful engines power this beast, and an A380 can carry up to 325 thousand liters of fuel. As a result, an A380 can fly 15,000 kilometers non-stop. For the airlines, the most exquisite feature of A380 is its ability to accommodate twice the number of passengers that would fit into a regular wide-body aircraft. Flying more passengers over longer distances, meant increase in revenue and reduction in costs. As for the passenger, the A380’s wide seats and quiet cabin ensured a comfortable journey. Airbus believed that A380’s unique selling proposition will make it a huge hit. Unfortunately, that turned out to be false. Ironically, it was the size of the aircraft that lead to its downfall. The goal of A380 has always been to make long distance journeys from large airports in metro cities more comfortable. In this model, metro city airports are considered as hubs and smaller city airports are seen as spokes that feed the hubs. Passengers from smaller cities have to first travel to a hub city airport, before embarking on a long distance connecting flight. Huge wide-body aircrafts are deployed between the hubs. Through A380, Airbus hoped that it can provide cost-efficient long distance journeys between hub cities. However, for passengers from smaller cities, this was expensive and time consuming. Passengers preferred direct flights to their destination, if available. This was indeed the main reason for A380’s failure. Only large airports could accommodate this colossal aircraft. Furthermore, these airports had to be upgraded specifically for the A380, and this incurred huge infrastructure costs. The size of the A380 posed problems for airline companies in other ways too. Twice as many number of passengers meant that it is not easy for the ground staff to manage the arrival and departure operations of an A380 aircraft. Besides, it was not easy to achieve full capacity in this massive aircraft, except for the peak season. Most A380s had to fly with only half their seats occupied. Fewer passengers meant lesser revenue – but the costs pretty much remained the same. Add these loses along with the price tag of 230 million dollars for an A380 – the writing was on the wall. The pandemic didn’t make things any easy either. Boeing had not ventured into a similar project because they knew similar challenges would occur, based on their earlier experience with the 747. Instead, they decided to introduce more efficient and smaller wide body aircrafts such as the 787. With a seating capacity of 300 and similar range as that of the A380, the Boeing-787 could be operated from most airports. As an aircraft that was best suited for the market, the 787 sold like hot cakes. More than 1500 orders have so far been made. When Airbus stops its manufacturing in 2021, only 251 A380s would have been made. Out of this 123 would be owned by Emirates. This is because unlike other airlines, Emirates have been really successful with their A380s. With the central positioning of the Dubai International airport, they are best suited to take advantage of the hub and spoke model. Emirates’ A380 fleet efficiently linked long-distance services to major cities in the east and the west. Even though Emirates was ready to buy more A380 aircrafts, other airlines weren’t placing any orders. Though Airbus suffered loss in the manufacturing of each A380 unit, they had estimated that by the manufacturing enough units, they’d be able to make a profit over time. Having no orders from no one else apart from Emirates meant that the programme would never be profitable for Airbus. They had to bitterly accept that the company wouldn’t even be able to recover the 25 billion dollars invested into the A380. Even though Airbus was initially interested in manufacturing newer versions of the A380 - known as the A380 Plus and the A380 Neo, the lack of interest meant that these plans had to be cancelled. Once the remaining orders are fulfilled in 2021, the assembly line for A380 will be closed forever. Passengers who’ve travelled aboard the A380 at least once would have experienced its comforts firsthand. When the services of the A380 eventually stop, aircraft enthusiasts from around the world would be deeply disappointed. Although the production of A380 will be stopped in 2021, we will continue to see them in the skies for a couple more decades, since the lifespan of an aircrafts is 25 years.