The health crisis has put air transport in the spotlight. Some will see it as a superb sleight of hand at best, or a veritable intellectual swindle at worst, but we’ve managed to go from a health crisis to a frenzied hunt for CO2, with an industry that’s easy to stigmatizewhile it is far from being one of the biggest contributors in terms of emissions.
The link between the pangolin (or the bat) and the A380 may be tenuous, but the fact remains that the health crisis signaled the end of the big four-engine jet, and the belief among some that this would put the brakes on flight growth.
They’re going to be disappointed, because the programed death of these aircraft will actually boost traffic!
The crisis hasn’t killed the jumbo jets, but it has accelerated their exit.
Let’s start by dispelling a number of preconceived notions. The crisis we have just been through has not led to the retirement of wide-body jets, but only a fraction of them: the four-engined A340s, A380s and B747s.
Even so, the crisis only accelerated a movement that was already underway, not triggered it. Today, a two-engine aircraft can carry almost as many passengers as a four-engine aircraft, and as the years go by, and the progress they make in terms of range and reliability, they are gradually nibbling away at the ground that was once the preserve of the “giants of the skies”.
Two engines consume less fuel than four, and as soon as it was possible to cover the same distance, it was the programmed end of large quadjets.
So if you want to find the real culprit responsible for the demise of the A380 and B747 take a look at ETOPS certification instead ! Add to this the fact thatthe A380 was a casting error for many airlines for a number of reasons and you have the causes of the current situation.
These aircraft were already in the hot seat before the crisis, as Airbus had announced the end of the A380 program, and when it came to making fast savings and projecting quickly into the future, they were the first to leave the scene. But this is not a sudden decision on the part of the airlines, just the acceleration of a process already written.
Apart from Emirates, whose size and business model made it an ideal airline for the 380 (or rather, the 380 was the ideal aircraft for them), and the passengers who dreamed of these aircraft, no one will regret them from an industrial point of view.
On the other hand, some people saw it as a symbol: the end of high-capacity long-haul air transport. They were wrong.
Towards an increase in long-haul frequencies
The disappearance of the A380 and B747 means a mechanical drop in capacity, even if each aircraft is replaced by a new-generation twin-engine jet. While the A350-100 and B777 and 777x have capacities approaching those of the “giants”, they don’t match them, and with a constant fleet we’ll be carrying fewer people.
No matter, fleets will grow. Once the stupefaction of the crisis is over, we’ll see that, in the long term, many large airlines have more aircraft on order than will be leaving their fleets. For example, while Lufthansa has planned to phase out 115 aircraft from its fleet (medium and long-haul), 175 aircraft are currently on order for the next 10 years. And the number of ” incoming ” long-haul aircraft will be higher than the number of ” outgoing ” aircraft. Smaller but more numerous.
But what about the successful routes where it was practical to put more than 500 passengers on a single aircraft when there are mainly only 250/300-seat aircraft available?
The answer is to be found at Emirates, an airline which is known to have been the most “A380-compatible”. Clearly it has no trouble changing her tune.
In a recent interview with Simple Flying, CEO Jim Clark said
“Twin-aisle aircraft feature prominently in our plans […]for our ability to increase frequencies on already profitable cities and introduce new routes.”
In other words, with smaller aircraft, the airline will be able to attempt destinations where the A380s and B777s that make up the bulk of its fleet were oversized, and more routes mean more flights. In addition, on existing destinations where demand is strong, the airline will be increasing frequencies, offering passengers greater flexibility. But this will automatically increase the number of flights!
Bottom line
No matter how you take the question, the result is the same.
Without passenger growth, smaller aircraft mean more flights.
If passenger numbers continue to grow over the long term, which is the most sensible option, smaller aircraft mean even more flights.
And the ever-postponed arrival of the 777X won’t change a thing. While its capacity is close to that of the 380, it is still inferior. And until it’s here, we’ll have to make do with lower-capacity aircraft.
By scrapping a number of wide-body aircraft, the crisis will have had an unexpected effect: in a few years’ time, there will be many more long-haulers in the sky than there are today.
Image: jcheris/Istockphoto
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