by Nexus » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:57 pm
The only thing that the A380 has to overcome, is infact one of its biggest advantage: Its SIZE.
Today, not that many airports can accomodate an aircraft of that caliber. Everything from catering to bagage-handling has to improved and at some airports (Frankfurt, for example) they are already running the those things at 110%.
The 7E7, too early to tell. It's looks to be a magnificent aircraft, it's obviously not going to be a bust...but my optismism is more dampered than Craig's.
The danger with this is that if Airbus succeeds with upgrading the A330, then Boeing will have absolutely nothing, nada, zip, as a backup. The 737 orders are already shrinking, and NOBODY places an order for a 744 since there are hundreds of them in Mojave etc. Is the 777 and its deratives enough to save them...nope.
It's also more economic to have an all Airbus fleet than an all Boeing, in terms of crew training and transitioning.
SAS, for example, uses the same crew for their A333 and A343 flights, very cheap and efficient :)
Time will tell gents, but it's important to remember that these 2 aircrafts are not competing for the same contracts, really 8)