Why US Carriers NEVER ordered the Airbus A380

  / foundandexplained  

The Airbus A380 saw great success worldwide, becoming the defacto aircraft of choice for Emirates and a flagship plane of Qantas, British Airways, Air France, and many more to name a few. But it never got the same success in the United States or the western hemisphere. Why did none of the big three, United, American, and Delta, order the Airbus A380? What would it have looked like had they ordered it,

Airbus' biggest plane, the A380, was certainly within reach of US carriers and should have ticked all the boxes for an airline to turn a considerable profit.

However, no north American, ended up with the plane - although two carriers did technically order it, but we will get to that in a moment!

With a capacity of 600 passengers depending on configuration, the Airbus A380 is the perfect plane for many airlines to operate. With so many seats, the aircraft can operate the lowest seat cost per passenger than any other plane - meaning in a cut-throat price war, the airline with the A380 will always be able to get ahead of the competition.

This feature also makes it perfect for high-capacity airports like London Heathrow.

The A380 also has an excellent range. Knocking out at around 8,000 nautical miles, for many airlines like Emirates and British Airways, the plane can reach nearly all of their destinations in the world bar a few more remote localities (cough cough Australia).

And thanks to the vast amount of space onboard, the Airbus A380 could fit all sorts of perks for those willing to pay for it, such as beds, private cabins and even showers! Incredible!

Airlines found that using the A380 on routes between hubs to be the most effective.

Thus far we have determined that the A380 works best on long-haul, high-densisty routes between hubs. But the north american market isn't suited for that type of aircraft.

While the North American market does have large hubs like LAX and New York, these airports are only the tip of the airport iceberg in America.

These regional center airports are not equipped to take a plane like the Airbus A380, with no jetbridges to reach the 2nd level, or taxiways wide enough to take plane.

Speaking of market demand, we also need to consider the demand for multiple flights per day. While some routes do have well over 600 seats per day in North America, especially the aforementioned LAX to New York, passengers have shown a preference to choose different ties to fly. They want horuly departures, or in the minimal case, a choice of a morning flight, noon flight, evening and late flight.

Emirates did manage to do this with is London to Dubai route last year, with multiple A380s leaving per day.

In addition, we also need to factor in the long-haul nature of the Airbus A380. It has a long boarding time compared to other planes and flies a long distance.

If you don't need to perform these long-haul ops, then it is far cheaper to operate a twin-jet aircraft. For example, an A380 is approx $22000 an hour to run, a Boeing 787 is approx $9000 to operate. Airlines would be smarter to operate two services than a single A380, flying each plane to a different destination in a hub to speak model than hub to hub.

Lastly the A380 also doesn't have a 2nd life as a cargo plane unlike the Boeing 747.

Both these carriers, FedEx and UPS did order the A380 so technically the title of this video is wrong, two US airline did order it, but they ended up canceling it. FedEx Express canceled 10 A380s on November 27th, 2006 and UPS Airlines canceled 10 A380s March 2nd, 2007

So the question remains, did any of the US carriers get close to ordering the Airbus A380?

Back in 2014, Steve Dickson, Delta's SVP for flight operations, said that
"We don't see an application for the A380 in our network,"
Dickson adds four-engine planes — such as the A380 — were "not viable"

For American Airlines, it was actually the airlines' lack of major hubs that made it shy away from the A380. Speaking to Business Insider in 2019, American Airlines' vice president of planning, Vasu Raja, said

Lastly, looking at United, the preference is to offer as many flights as possible throughout the day.

For a fun experiment, we should we consider the question of what market conditions or reasons that would make a US carrier want or even need an A380?

There are a few ways off to top of my head. We might have seen an A380 be deployed for weekend flights to and from Hawaii for holidaymakers trying to escape for the weekend, In terms of international routes, we might have seen a new york to Brazil flight. The last example might have been flights from Dallas to Sydney and Melbourne in Australia.

This is actually a sign of the future. The US carriers can't really see themselves booking down for an aircraft seating over 400 passengers, let alone up to 600 or even 800 on an all-economy Airbus A380.

Which for me personally, is a real shame.