Airbus A380 and the Future of Sustainable Air Travel

Introduction

Less than two years after the ‘retirement’ of Concorde, the previous iconic figure of commercial aircraft, the Airbus A380 was unveiled and dispatched on its maiden flight from Toulouse Airport in France. But speed and elegance were no longer seen of particular importance; the way forward was now mass transport, and the bigger the better. Soon the term Superjumbo was coined and debate began as to whether air transport on this massive scale would be more or less sustainable than the current situation.

With the capacity to carry up to 853 passengers, and a range to carry them over 15,000km at a cruising speed of Mach 0.85, the A380 is definitely a phenomenal feat of engineering. However with all these achievements also come questions. Is there actually a demand or need for it? If there is, does it even meet that need? Basically, has it hit the middle between ‘too much, too soon’ and ‘too little, too late’?

Background and Objectives

The A380 started life in the minds of the Airbus as purely a project to outdo Boeing and their 747 in capacity. When they began studying possibilities properly in the early 1990’s, ideas such as widening the body to gain the extra capacity were considered but eventually the double-deck design was adopted and the ‘A3XX’ (as it was known then) project entered the detailed design phase. While in 1993 Boeing stopped looking at the possibility of making a ‘superjumbo’ type plane, Airbus persisted. During it’s development in the late 1990’s, the grim predictions for the global financial markets in the future meant that Airbus started to focus more on cutting operating costs with the A3XX along with increasing capacity. Making larger and cheaper to run than the Boeing 747 meant that the A3XX would be far more likely to succeed.

In the year 2000, with the design complete, Airbus touted for possible orders and when they deemed they had enough interest, the road to actually building it was opened, having decided upon ‘A380’ as its name, due to the ‘8’ resembling its double-decker design. Construction on the first prototype was finally completed and unveiled in January 2005, with its first flight following shortly afterwards on 27th April 2005.

Achievements

When it comes to CO2 emissions, the A380 is certainly an innovative way to combat the damaging effect air travel is seen to have on the environment. It burns 17 per cent less fuel per passenger than the previous largest passenger aircraft, the Boeing 747, and of course this means travelling on the A380 over a 747 or indeed most other aircraft reduces your ‘Carbon Footprint’ a great deal. As well as this operational benefit, the A380’s construction and development has set an example in how to best reduce its environmental performance throughout its entire life. Airbus strongly encouraged minimal environmental impact from its suppliers and with this has, right the way down the supply chain, created a new ethos of using innovative technology and working with the rest of the industry to sustain the current trend of growth.

As well as these environmental constraints, another consideration in developing the A380 was the rapid growth in air travel and the capacity of airports and airline companies to deal with it. With demand increasing day by day, it is argued that the A380 is needed to tackle this growth; as the current size aircraft and the cost of running greater volumes of them was certainly unsustainable. Its arrival has pushed forward the further development of the ground infrastructure, especially at airports where terminal buildings have been modernised in time for the arrival of the A380 with 3 ‘skyways’ between the two different levels of the plane, for the efficient loading and unloading of the massive amount of passengers the plane will be moving. The actual design of the plane was done in collaboration with more than 60 major airports to ensure compatibility.

Politics of Air Travel
At the moment, air travel is politically a hot topic, especially in terms of its environmental impact. The problem is governments are caught in a dilemma between creating growth in their economies, expanding into the world beyond through the fast and cheap method of air, and keeping the environment in which we live going as it is. At present, no real global consensus has been reached, but agreements such the Kyoto treaty go some way to governments making commitments on the environmental side. Solutions such as greater taxes on consumers using air transport are what is currently proposed. On the other hand, the industry that currently relies on air transport continues to fight against this, arguing that economic growth would be stunted by a savage crackdown on air travel. The success of the A380 greatly depends on how well the industry, including Airbus itself, can prevent anything such as taxes shrinking their business. Consumers, especially of the volumes required to make the A380 as efficient as it claims to be, will be put off using air transport as much should the costs increase higher than spending margins allow.

The Outlook
At the moment it seems no one else wants to touch this new ‘superjumbo’ concept, whether it’s because of not wanting to compete in that market, or predicting the idea will be a massive flop. Boeing, Airbus’ main plane-making rival, has recently revealed their new 787 ‘Dreamliner’, which they say represents the real future style of air travel. Their idea of the future is smoother, increasingly comfortable travel for passengers, and also a much longer range that will mean more destinations will now be within the reach of one non-stop flight. But is sticking to these small aircraft doing anything to ease the environmental impact?

Conclusion
The view of many people is that the only way to attain a sustainable future in air travel is to keep more planes on the ground, and I would tend to agree. While the A380 does do this, it could only fuel the growth in air travel and the demand will be willingly met by the industry by still putting more planes in the air. Perhaps for now the A380 will divide the impact per passenger more than at the moment, but I don’t think it is a long-term sustainable solution.