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Is bigger better?

The giant Airbus A380 is impressive, but it's not clear if it will change air travel the way its builders hope.

By BILL ADAIR
Published May 2, 2005

TOULOUSE, France - In a cavernous building on the edge of the Toulouse airport, Airbus employees are building giants.

Last week, there were four A380 planes under construction. One had just gotten its wings attached and barely resembled a plane. Others were nearly finished, their tail fins stretching 80 feet high.

Everything is super-sized on the A380. Its wingspan is nearly as wide as a football field is long. It is so heavy it needs 22 wheels. It is so roomy that one airline, Virgin Atlantic, is planning to have gyms, beauty parlors and a casino on board.

Last week, thousands of Airbus employees cheered when the gargantuan aircraft made its first flight, cementing its status as the world's largest passenger plane. Officials of the European company took a few digs at the former champion, the Boeing 747, by claiming the era of the 747 is about to end.

"It was time," said Airbus marketing director Richard Carcaillet, "for a new design."

But it's not clear if the pudgy European plane will transform air travel as much as Airbus hopes. By boldly pursuing a bigger-is-better strategy, Airbus may have created a product with limited appeal.

The questions about the A380 are really larger questions about airplanes of the future.

How will we fly to international destinations?

Will we rely on smaller planes from more cities - a trend that would help the Tampa Bay area get more flights?

Or will we increasingly go to major hubs and use giant planes like the A380?

Or both?

Airbus has a very different culture than Boeing.

Chicago-based Boeing is known as the "Lazy B" because of its reputation for being slow and deliberate. The company has been churning out 747s for 36 years. The long-haul plane, which typically carries 416 passengers, has been modernized, but the basic design is unchanged.

Airbus planes are more computerized and have more plastics. The company has a European style. Its assembly line workers can even drink wine in the cafeteria.

That's a French tradition, Carcaillet said, adding quickly that "workaholics are tolerated - but not alcoholics."

Airbus is known for its computerized "fly-by-wire" planes and its composite parts, which are lighter and save fuel. About 25 percent of the A380 is composite and it relies extensively on computers.

The computers help to standardize cockpits in different models. Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas planes have many cockpit variations, so pilots must spend many weeks being retrained for a new aircraft. But Airbus cockpits are so similar that pilots switching from other Airbus models to the A380 only need a few weeks of training.

When flying, pilots may not notice the A380's size.

John Cox, a St. Petersburg aviation consultant who has flown many Airbus planes, said, "In the air, I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of difference between the A380 and other planes."

But on the ground, the plane's huge size is creating big challenges.

Airbus this year will hire hundreds of people for a chaotic test that will determine how many people the giant plane will be permitted to carry.

The A380 is designed to hold 555 passengers in a typical three-class setup and as many as 840 in the most dense arrangement. But to get government approval for those numbers, Airbus must show that passengers can safely evacuate the plane in an emergency.

The test requires that passengers get out of the emergency exits in 90 seconds. To better simulate an accident, half the exits will be blocked.

Other planes have passed the test without major problems, but the A380's double-decker design creates some trouble: passengers on the upper deck are so high they may be reluctant to jump down a slide. That could slow an evacuation and cause Airbus to fail the test. That, in turn, could mean the plane is certified for fewer passengers, which would be a critical blow to the company's bigger-is-better approach.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which is jointly overseeing the test with European agencies, has made it more difficult for Airbus by requiring a single, all-plane evacuation instead of the individual tests for upper- and lower-decks Airbus preferred.

"The evacuation test is a really important milestone," said Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman.

In early tests, Airbus designers discovered that some passengers were reluctant to jump down a slide from the upper deck. So they created an inflatable wall at the top of the slide so passengers won't see they are 26 feet high.

"It's a neat design," Carcaillet said. "It blocks your view to the ground and gives you good confidence."

The designers also used a rougher coating on the slides from the upper decks so passengers won't slide down too fast and injure themselves.

Airbus officials say they are confident they can pass the test with the full load of passengers.

The size of the plane has created another problem on the ground. Where can it land?

With such a big wingspan, relatively few airports have enough space to allow the plane to taxi around the airfield.

Only the largest international hub airports will be ready for the plane when it starts flying late next year. It's unlikely the A380 will have regular service at Tampa International Airport because TIA does not have the large volume of international passengers necessary to justify the plane.

But Airbus says the plane was intended all along for major hub airports around the world and more than 60 cities are making the necessary improvements.

Designers of airplanes have a difficult time predicting the future.

Sometimes they get it right, as Boeing did when it created the 747 in the mid 1960s. For three decades, the plane has been a workhorse on long-haul routes.

Other times, designers get it wrong. The supersonic Concorde introduced in 1969 was supposed to revolutionize international travel, but it was too loud and not economical. It was retired two years ago.

Airbus has fared well with its smaller planes, the A320 and its siblings the 319 and 321, which in the United States are primarily used for domestic routes. They compete with the Boeing 737.

As Airbus executives looked to the future of international travel, they decided the way to challenge the 747 was to build something bigger.

Their logic went like this: A large share of international flights are concentrated at "gateway" airports such as JFK in New York and Heathrow in London. But many of those airports are at capacity.

So the way to give airlines an advantage in those markets is to offer larger planes. An A380 uses the same takeoff slot as a 747, but it can carry 35 percent more passengers. Also, Airbus says the plane's advanced design - its big, efficient wings and the lightweight materials - should save airlines 15 to 20 percent per passenger, making the A380 more economical. It can also fly 10 percent farther than other large planes.

Airbus has orders for 154 A380s, with the first ones scheduled to begin service late next year. The company says it needs to sell 250 to cover the $12-billion it spent developing the plane, which it sells for about $282-million each, depending on amenities.

But Boeing officials and some aviation analysts are skeptical. They say the A380 should be a great plane, it's just not clear that many airlines will want one.

Boeing, always cautious, is pursuing a conservative strategy. It is introducing the 787 Dreamliner, with only 223-259 seats, because Boeing officials think the trend in the future will be more international flights from mid size cities. Airlines won't need a huge new airplane for those routes.

Randy Baseler, Boeing's vice president of marketing, said people don't want to connect at a hub. "We fly by air to save time. We want the least amount of hassles and the least amount of changing planes," he said.

Darryl Jenkins, an aviation analyst, said Airbus needed to do something to challenge Boeing's dominance in the market for big airplanes. "I'm just not sure this was the right thing," Jenkins said. "It's a very big gamble."

Washington bureau chief Bill Adair can be reached at 202 463-0575 or adair@sptimes.com

Airbus has received 154 orders and commitments for the A380 or A380F freighter from 15 customers.

Air France: 10

China Southern Airlines: 5

Emirates: 43 (including 2 freighters)

Etihad Airways: 4

International Lease Finance Corp.: 5 passenger, 5 freighters

Korean Air Lines: 5

Lufthansa: 15

MAS: 6

Qantas Airways: 12

Qatar Airways: 2

Singapore Airlines: 10

Thai Airways International: 6

Virgin Atlantic Airways: 6

Federal Express: 10 freighters

UPS: 10 freighters

Source: Airbus

[Last modified April 29, 2005, 22:03:02]