747 price crash.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/boeing-747-prices-tumble-as-higher-fuel-costs-end-23-year-reign.html

 

"The move away from larger planes has curtailed sales of the A380 and the 747-8, according toRichard Aboulafia, vice president of the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia forecaster. Airbus has sold 253 A380s. Boeing has orders for 106 747-8s, of which only 27 are for commercial passenger operations.

“The market for large aircraft in general is disappearing fast,” Aboulafia said. “Most of the 747-8 planes are cargo. There’s just a limited market.”"

 

Boeing have produced the 787 at the perfect time.

Yeah, JAL is starting non-stop service from Boston to Tokyo using the 787. I'd imagine it's just a more cost-effective aircraft for a lot of these long flights. You need to sell more seats to fill either a 747 or A380. I'd imagine the fuel cost is a lot lower on the 787, too.

 

Boeing have produced the 787 at the perfect time.

 

The 787 is probably the biggest single reason for the drop in 747 orders, particularly the passenger version.

The 787 is probably the biggest single reason for the drop in 747 orders, particularly the passenger version.

 

Triple 7 more likely actually. It got much better fuel burn per seat-mile than the 747 long before the 787 first flew. The 787 is smaller and is aimed at routes that never attracted sufficient passengers for the 747, the kind of routes that are currently served by the 767 / A330, as well as longer range routes that the 767 couldn't serve economically.

The 787 is for very long, thin routes while the 747 is for long, very fat routes. In between is the 777 which is what would be ordered instead of the 747. The 747 is a good aircraft the problem lies with people now expecting more daily flights that fit their schedules. They get more passengers if they fly two 767's, 7's, or 8's then they would with one 747 flight.

 

Another thing to look at is a lot of twin engine aircraft can now be ETOPS 180-minute approved which opens up I believe 95% of the worlds airports from any place in the world. There is no reason for 4 engines any more and the more engines you have the more maintenance costs you are going to have. Soon I believe all aircraft are going to only have two engines.

The reality is that about two decades ago, Boeing and EADS took different views on which would be the more lucrative market in the long term, and planned their developments according to what their different appraisals told them.

 

EADS thought big mutha aeroplanes were the way to go, and so they made the A380, with a vague plan to bang out the A350 for medium and shorter high density routes as a back up plan and the A320 family to cover everything else. Boeing did the reverse, suspecting regionals and medium haul would be the way to go, and so they decided to merely tart up the 747 design rather than risk developing a completely new massive airliner from scratch. Most of the differences in the 800 variant were technological advances which could also be used on smaller airliners. This is what the 787 benefits from and is technology which will probably show up on the next 737, making it vastly lighter and therefore more economical than the A320, which the present 737 is not. That's what all that project Yellowstone malarkey was about.

 

As it has turned out, neither were entirely correct, but Boeing were closer to the mark. The increase in fuel costs, coupled with the global economic downturn, has meant that the truly happy hunting ground for what airlines want, is turboprops, because they actually use about half as much fuel as even the most economical jetliners, and the advent of the internet has meant that there is far less need for people to jet over the Atlantic and Pacific at high speeds for business meetings, when they can do so just as easily via a webcam or a text message.

 

Thus the real growth area in air travel, when everyone is tightening their belts and their mobile phones are doing the connecting for business rather than people sitting on a jetliner for thirteen hours to go to a one hour meeting, is short haul economical aircraft which can fly people on weekend city breaks, rather than halfway around the globe on a mega-expensive holiday or a business trip. And since on shorter flights, another half hour on the flight time is a negligible down side in comparison to the massive saving in fuel which turboprops bring to the table, turboprops will allow airlines to offer cheaper tickets in spite of rising fuel costs, which is why both they, and indeed their passengers, are going to need a crapload of new aircraft like the ATR-72 and the Dash 8.

 

Anyway, when the price for a brand new Boeing 747-800 drops below, ooh, let's say thirty quid, and Just Flight start selling it on behalf of Boeing, I'm going to use some of my JF loyalty points to pick one up for peanuts. They'll have to knock a few more quid off the A380 before I'll buy one of those ugly mothers though :LMAO:

 

Al

The reality is that about two decades ago, Boeing and EADS took different views on which would be the more lucrative market in the long term, and planned their developments according to what their different appraisals told them.

 

It's interesting to note that the decision-makers on opposite sides of the Atlantic made the opposite decisions long before, when Europe (well, France and England, anyway) went for speed with the Concorde while Boeing decided on seats with the 747. Both were trying to predict the market, and Boeing got it right by figuring that people wanted cheap seats rather than fast flights. The observation about the resurgence of turboprops shows that that analysis is probably still correct.

Boeing is always right!

...went for speed with the Concorde...

 

Which was the wrong decision and was known to be the wrong decision at the time, but politics intervened effectifvely destroying the UK civil aviation industry.

The reality is that about two decades ago, Boeing and EADS took different views on which would be the more lucrative market in the long term, and planned their developments according to what their different appraisals told them.

 

EADS thought big mutha aeroplanes were the way to go, and so they made the A380, with a vague plan to bang out the A350 for medium and shorter high density routes as a back up plan and the A320 family to cover everything else. Boeing did the reverse, suspecting regionals and medium haul would be the way to go, and so they decided to merely tart up the 747 design rather than risk developing a completely new massive airliner from scratch. Most of the differences in the 800 variant were technological advances which could also be used on smaller airliners. This is what the 787 benefits from and is technology which will probably show up on the next 737, making it vastly lighter and therefore more economical than the A320, which the present 737 is not. That's what all that project Yellowstone malarkey was about.

 

As it has turned out, neither were entirely correct, but Boeing were closer to the mark. The increase in fuel costs, coupled with the global economic downturn, has meant that the truly happy hunting ground for what airlines want, is turboprops, because they actually use about half as much fuel as even the most economical jetliners, and the advent of the internet has meant that there is far less need for people to jet over the Atlantic and Pacific at high speeds for business meetings, when they can do so just as easily via a webcam or a text message.

 

Thus the real growth area in air travel, when everyone is tightening their belts and their mobile phones are doing the connecting for business rather than people sitting on a jetliner for thirteen hours to go to a one hour meeting, is short haul economical aircraft which can fly people on weekend city breaks, rather than halfway around the globe on a mega-expensive holiday or a business trip. And since on shorter flights, another half hour on the flight time is a negligible down side in comparison to the massive saving in fuel which turboprops bring to the table, turboprops will allow airlines to offer cheaper tickets in spite of rising fuel costs, which is why both they, and indeed their passengers, are going to need a crapload of new aircraft like the ATR-72 and the Dash 8.

 

Anyway, when the price for a brand new Boeing 747-800 drops below, ooh, let's say thirty quid, and Just Flight start selling it on behalf of Boeing, I'm going to use some of my JF loyalty points to pick one up for peanuts. They'll have to knock a few more quid off the A380 before I'll buy one of those ugly mothers though :LMAO:

 

Al

 

Time to buy Bombardier stock then...and with the recent Netjets order even more reason. Symbol is BBD.B.TO Currently trading a P/E ratio just under 8 and stock price almost as low as after 2008 crash. By comparison Boeing (BA) trading at P/E of almost 13 and EADS is losing money (I think).

The 747 outlasted the timeline the original designers had thought it would last. The original design called for the 747 to be easily converted to Cargo Ops as they thought this aircraft would get 10 years of passenger service...tops. Boeing at the time thought supersonic was the way of the future and was working on the Boeing 2707.

 

I am glad the 747 is almost 50 years old now and still remains one of my favourites. With the 747-800 at least it will be around for a while longer.

I'll miss them if they go - unfortunately here at Gatwick it's only Virgin that operate 744s. They are a fantastic sight, coming in or going out (and you really know when one is departing from 08R!). The BA and Emirates T7s leave me a bit cold really, apart from how impressively large their engines are.

Time to dust out my ATR :LMAO:

I'll miss them if they go - unfortunately here at Gatwick it's only Virgin that operate 744s. They are a fantastic sight, coming in or going out (and you really know when one is departing from 08R!). The BA and Emirates T7s leave me a bit cold really, apart from how impressively large their engines are.

 

Yes, being a pilot on the Flightdeck and seeing one land at the threshold in front of you is amazing.

 

All excellent posts in here.

 

Airbus were very successful with it's A330 design. Cheaper than the 777 considerably, it yields good returns on the routes its customers operate it on. And I like it more than a 767-300 as a passenger. More spacious and inflight entertainment. But the 777-300 is the ultimate in spaciousness and luxury. Just love riding those girls.....

How do the economics of regional jets compare with turboprops? I've noticed that Jet Blue switches some of their Boston-West Palm Beach routes from A320s in the winter to RJs in the summer. The lower traffic volume can be served by fewer seats, and I assume lower cost as well. For flights of this length (1250 nm or so) a turboprop would get kind of long.

Typically on any given RJ operated route a turbo-prop would use less fuel. In return it's (somewhat) slower, which reduces the number of flights you can do by day. Somewhere in there is a tipping point where a turbo-prop is better than an RJ, depending on the price of fuel vs the revenue per plane load of passengers

 

Thus the real growth area in air travel, when everyone is tightening their belts and their mobile phones are doing the connecting for business rather than people sitting on a jetliner for thirteen hours to go to a one hour meeting, is short haul economical aircraft which can fly people on weekend city breaks, rather than halfway around the globe on a mega-expensive holiday or a business trip. And since on shorter flights, another half hour on the flight time is a negligible down side in comparison to the massive saving in fuel which turboprops bring to the table, turboprops will allow airlines to offer cheaper tickets in spite of rising fuel costs, which is why both they, and indeed their passengers, are going to need a crapload of new aircraft like the ATR-72 and the Dash 8.

 

Embraer certainly doesn't think so. They recently announced that they wouldn't be developing a new turboprop because the market was too small for more than two compe**ors* (i.e. Bombardier and ATR). I don't think there have been that many Q400 orders recently either.

 

*Hmm, it appears the profanity filter is rather proactive, no discussion of the Paridae bird family allowed it would seem.