The A380X: Fixing Airbus's Flagship, Launching a New Era of Travel

Welcome to the A380X blog! We aim to build momentum for the launch of a large-scale revision of the A380X that could cut its trip costs by 30% and revolutionize global travel.

Our basic thesis is that the current A380 is a great idea marred by deeply flawed execution. We believe that the A380's faults have enabled a simplistic two-sided public discourse about the merits of Very Large Aircraft (VLA). On one side, pundits declare the death of four-engine VLA's by pointing to the moribund A380 and 747-8 programs versus thriving modern twinjets. The mainstream media, especially on America's side of the Atlantic, largely echoes this line. For shorthand, we'll call this the "Boeing view." On the other side of the debate, and to some extent of the Atlantic, Airbus and its supporters predict the inevitable, nebulously imminent blockbuster success of the A380 due to global air traffic growth. The A380 is the only solution to the problems of airport congestion, these supporters say. This we'll call the "Airbus view."

We are deeply frustrated by this debate and its consequences. The Boeing and Airbus views prevent more insightful analysis of current market trends and of VLA's role within them. Each camp holds to fundamental premises that frame the debate as "either/or." Participants tend to accept one side's set of premises while rejecting the other's, stifling critical thought on each side.

The Boeing view's premises, generally, are:

• Route fragmentation is inevitable, implying smaller airplane sizes and less emphasis on hubs.
• Twin-engine airplanes are intrinsically more efficient than quads.
• Long haul travel to/from Asia-Pacific will fragment to the same degree that trans-Atlantic travel did.

The Airbus view's premises, generally, are:

• Higher levels of long haul traffic will inevitably lead to higher VLA utilization.
• Airport congestion will inevitably favor VLA usage for long haul routes.

Regardless of whether Airbus and Boeing actually hold such rigid views internally, their public pronouncements have defined the public debate and market perceptions of VLAs. Because of the dismal commercial record of the A380 and the 747-8, Boeing's view has broadly prevailed among equity analysts and aviation consultants.

We reject the public debate's binary oppositions, holding these premises instead:

• Long haul route fragmentation has undeniable appeal but its predominance is far from inevitable.
• Airport congestion will have some effect on average aircraft size, but its impact will be muted for long haul travel.
• Higher absolute traffic levels ambiguously affect long haul plane size, as it enables more point-to-point flying in addition to offering opportunities to up-gauge plane size on trunk routes.
• Four-engine planes have demonstrable advantages for planes of larger size.
• The relative efficiency of the specific planes employed will determine the predominance of route fragmentation versus increased aircraft size. An extremely efficient VLA can reorient travel towards trunk routes. If VLAs are no more efficient or only marginally so, their role will be marginal.

The A380 is only marginally more efficient than current twin-engine competition, and its edge over future twin competition will be smaller (even with new engines) or nonexistent (without new engines). This fact explains the A380's slow sales, not the simple fact that it is a VLA quad. The good news, however, is that the A380's flaws are known and fixable. An optimized and modernized A380 would be sufficiently attractive to sell well and for enough profit to justify the substantial investment required.

We call this revised A380 the "A380X" because its central element would be a new composite wing similar to the one Boeing is putting on its venerable 777, creating the "777-X". The A380's over-sized, stubby, and outdated aluminum wing, whose dimensions derive from the once-planned A380-900 stretch, is the root cause of weight and aerodynamic inefficiencies that reverberate throughout the frame: landing gear, engines, empennage, and high-lift devices are all bigger and/or heavier than otherwise needed. Some or all of these should be revised with the wing when Airbus revises its flagship. A maximal A380X would also incorporate Al-Li and possibly other nearly mature new wing technologies to deliver efficiency gains over the current frame that could exceed 30%. With those gains, the A380X's trip costs would be within 10-15% of the 777X. 

This first post is an introduction. Further posts will detail the structural and aerodynamic efficiency gains of an A380X. We'll discuss its anticipated production and development cost, relative to A380's CEO and NEO, and argue that anticipated future profits justify a heavy Airbus investment in the project. Hope you stick around. Comments are more than welcome, as are additional contributors to this series.