It was crewed mostly by Luftansa with a few airbus employees also helping, it was a Luftansa flight. Its purpose however was a promotional one to look for some american buyers

Exactly. Someone talked of all the passengers on board. Its a publicity flight. They aren't certified yet for passenger service. I saw the folks that got off and it was all Lufthansa folks and Airbus suits.

Airbus has yet to sell a single A380 to any United States airline. Some of the largest airlines in the world (American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest, US Air, FedEx, UPS...). None of them have an A380 scheduled for delivery (except UPS, but they are cancelling it).

Airbus is even losing orders from their key customers over the A380 mess:
Emirates order 42 of the Boeing 777's after delays were announced to the A380.
Air France continues to order 777-300's and was one of the main customers to launch the 777F.
Lufthansa has order 20 of the 747-8 intercontinental's.

And they have probably not even sold enough A380's to make a profit. But hey, they have fired their CEO and layed off 10's of thousands of workers.
Sounds pretty impressive to me!


When watching the video of the A380 landing, I heard a news reporter speculate that United and Northwest would be the most likely to order the A380. I tend to agree. I don't think Delta, Continental, or US Air would jump into that sized aircraft given their international routes are optimal for the 787/777 sized aircraft. American might, but then again, I think the 777/787 are much better. United and Northwest have a lot of the Asia (and United's Australia) routes that may be more suited for the A380. Still, both of these airlines are 747 operators, and it would seem more reasonable for these airlines to order 747-8's.
Who do you think may order the A380, if anyone, from the United States?

I think FedEx/UPS are the only airlines that may eventually fly this plane. And that is contingent upon Airbus getting their act together and eventually restarting development of an A380 Freighter. Until then, the only A380's in the United States will be operated by foreign airlines.

Ya emirates has like 40 a380s ordered too :rolleyes:
The 777 and the A380 arnt the same class of plane!(the 777 would be instead of 340's NOT 380's)

Yes the US carriers are gods right now.... they are the jewl of the industry :rolleyes:
They are commingback but when the A380 was first being put out the legacies were layingoff thousands.

And from what I understand most of the future aviation growth is going to be outside north america

Fat or Phat?...Fat I sez.

The fact that future aviation growth may be outside North America does not mean that only the A380 can be used to serve it.

Also, what's so bad about the US carriers? Okay, they are not Emirates, but how many flights a day does Emirates operate as opposed to AA, or UA? I don't even think they come close.

Needless to say, the A380 has not even come close to selling enough aircraft to break even.:rolleyes:

I would not sell the 787 short either, as orders of those exceed those of the A380, just like sales of the 777 exceed those of the A340.

So, roll your eyes all you want, but my prediction is that with the 747-800 and 787 on the way, and if Boeing takes the 787 technology and brings it to a replacement for the 737 sometime down the line, Airbus has some serious issues to contend with.

Also, it's not the first time we've seen the "white elephant" struggling on approach.:rolleyes:

Who cares where the "growth" may be, it ultimately comes down to the right airplane for the mission.

The A380 will have a market, but how long it takes for them to break even on it is another story.

Airbus should WISH for the day that they could announce the retirement of just one version of the A380, as Boeing did recently with the 747-400.

They have some HUGE shoes to fill, and so far they are not exactly doing it that well.

The Boeing 747 went into service some 38 years ago, before we even heard of Airbus, and you're rolling your eyes?

I am not anti-Airbus, but, watch out, I think Boeing is coming back with a vengeance.:D

Dubai is going to run out of oil within the next 10 years. Then what? I guess it is going to have to rely on its tourism. Come vacation in the desert!

Sorry, I don't want to knock Dubai or Emirates. The growth in the UAE has been nothing short of amazing. Open skies brought lots of air traffic (business/tourism) into the country. The lack of income taxes has caused numerous corporations to move their corporate headquarters to Dubai (See Haliburton). Emirates is growing like crazy. Real Estate prices have doubled or trippled in the last several years...
Despite that, there is no question that the majority of this growth came from one three letter word... OIL. And that is going to run out VERY soon. In my opinion, Emirates is growing too fast. But we will see.

Oh, by the way, the A380 is currently 12,000lbs over weight. And as someone who has some experience with aircraft design, I know what every pound of weight does to range, efficiency, and payload. One more delay in the A380 program, and you may see Emirates cancel their orders. And if that were to happen, you could kiss the A380 program goodbye.

Guys! Stop talking bad about my "girlfriend"! Rosemary Church is a HOTTIE from Oz.! I spend my Taipei layovers watching CNN Int'l., just waiting for her smiling face. :) She's got cute little dimples. I must confess,...sometimes I have impure thoughts about her :o
fbh

Exactly!, I thought it was closed (25L) so that they could widen the runway to accomodate the A380......but the 380 landed on 24R.....the one that wasn't widened, thought that was kind of funny. Maybe they didn't need to widen 25L?

Actually, oil accounts for <10% of Dubai's national GDP. They are not nearly as dependent on oil as the other emirates and other nations in that region as one might think.