Could Boeing the airplane company beat the Airbus A380 with a bigger and better airplane?

Answer 1

They could, if the market and infrastructure would support it. The A380 is still built to fit a standard large aircraft parking spot, it is twice the weight of a 747, but it isn't twice the size.

Will they? Boeing's current rhetoric is that people want to fly point to point efficiently rather than center to center with feeder flights. The Airbus view is that with growing demand and limited space and flight slots they need to get as many people into each slot as efficiently as possible. There's a good chance that both are true. The 787 addresses Boston to Oakland but it isn't an answer for SFO to LHR, three 787s can't compete against one A380 because there aren't the takeoff slots to allow the extra aircraft to fly.

Boeing is Aeons ahead if Airbus? Oh save me from the groundless BS! Americans are always running around shouting "USA Number One!" Airbus has been seen by the industry, over the last few years, to be years ahead of Boeing, that's why Airbus has been outselling Boeing consistantly. Though not this year. But Airbus will fix their current issues.

There's a lot of people crowing about the problems Airbus has right now, but the A380 was certified about a week ago. You know what this terrible disasterous A380 problem is? Wiring. They had some issues with the wiring harness due to some subcontractor having an incompatible version of their CAD software. Wiring is a hugely complex task, but there's nothing fundamental wrong with the aircraft. The first 787 hasn't been built and they've already trashed a hull section because it had voids in the composite, this doesn't compare well to the A380 losing one non-structural part on the ultimate load test. Having the wrong light attached to a switch doesn't compare to having a hull section fail under load. Boeing know they have taken a huge gamble with the 787, it is being built all over the world and they are praying that all the bits go together when they arrive at the asembly line. If they don't then the embarrasment of a bad wiring harness in the A380 may look like nothing.

The Airbus answer to the 787 is the A350 which will be an all new aircraft. It is worth remembering that some airines are so comitted to Airbus that they have ordered that instead of the 787.

It will be interesting to see if any external opposition arrises to this two horse race.

Answer 2

Boeing stated at the outset of this competition that a bigger plane is not even necessary. Seats for sale now are not filled, so why build something bigger.
Boeing's comparable aircraft is the 747-800, which is really a bigger plane, but has room for 400 as compared to the A-380's 555.
In order to have a 200,000 payload advantage, the A380 must be nearly 200,000 pounds heavier. Heavier means more cost to operate. Also the initial costs are $46 million more for the A-380.
Now for actual deliveries: Some A380s will be delivered this year, but all other subsequent deliveries will be delayed by 6 months to a year. Also, to make matters worse, there is a lot of internal strife between the "owners" of EADS.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/10/16/cnairbus16.xml

At this point, some orders for the A380 have been cancelled, but orders are strong for the 747-800 scheduled to begin deliveries in 2010.
In my opinion there will be less trouble and delay with an already proven design with no interference from the government.

Answer 3

Boeing is competing with the A380 with a slightly bigger version of their 747, called the 747-800 Intercontinental, it is still smaller than the A380. There are no plans (that I know of) to build an even bigger jet.

Boeing gave Airbus a bit slap, with the 787, it is their weapon of choice. With their business model (plus internal problems with Airbus) Boeing is waaaaay ahead of Airbus in orders for this year.

UPDATE:

Just wanted to say that both Airbus and Boeing will be focusing on an aircraft to replace A320 - B-737 next. Though Airbus still has to finish the A350XWB first.

To Chris H:

Didn't the A380s wing fail the ultimate load test?
If wiring wasn't that big a deal then why the 2+ year delay? 3 CEOs in under 1 year?
Some A350s have been sold to loyal Airbus customers, plus the 787 is sold-out for years and years to come.
Remember that Airbus had to scrap their first A350 proposal because it was such a poor contender.

To Efferrel0:
First A380 delivery is set for October 2007, to Singapore, this will be the ONLY A380 delivered in 2007. None for 2006.

Answer 4

The answer is NO.
Boeing is too smart to waste its money on a bigger albatross! Current long flights on 747s are often not filled to capacity, so why would these routes need a bigger plane? It doesn't make any sense.
The reason behind the bigger plane was to get more people per landing at airports with capacity issues (Heathrow). BUT, the A380 is so heavy that it creates a bigger set of vortices behind it, forcing other flights to stay farther back (or get flipped over). This reduces the number of landings per day at crowded airports, defeating the purpose of more seats per landing.
The A380 cannot land on most airports in the world because it is too heavy and will damage the tarmac. Some airports are strengthening their runways to withstand the load, but what if there's an emergency and the A/C needs to land without a retrofitted runway nearby? It will land and be stranded, that's what will happen. Major costs to fix the runway in that situation. Emergency landings happen every time someone gets sick or unruly, it's not a knock on the A380s quality.
The wiring is all wrong because the Germans and French use different versions of design software; what a brilliant plan (duh). The Germans use CATIA v4 and the French use CATIA v5. One would think the Dassault, which makes the CATIA software, would make the two compatible, but no. The v5 is much more capable, using 3D images of parts, whereas the v4 used only 2D representations, and in the end the mismatch caused the wires to be too short. Note that many of these wires are actually bundles of many wires of different lengths that must snake all through the plane to fit properly.
The A380 is much like the Concorde, only fatter and slower. It sold 159 but has lost orders from Fedex, an Intl leasing corp and had orders from Virgin Atlantic delayed four years. The cargo version is at risk of getting cancelled with only one customer left with ten orders.
The A380 is a disaster in progress. While the plane itself looks impressive, it will be a financial sewer hole for cash for Airbus, which is highly dependent on state subsidies to exist.
Look at the stock for the two companies; the stock market knows the score. Look up BA and EAD.PA, you'll see!

Answer 5

Why would Boeing want to build a bigger plane? Boeing has a better grasp on market trends, evidenced by the 737, 747 and 777 programs. The 737 is the most successful commercial aircraft in terms of number built & expansion; the 747 is the most successful jumbo aircraft produced by virtue of profitability, adaptability & recognition; the 777 is the safest airliner in the world, having been in-service for 18 years with only three hull-losses & only two deaths directly attributable to it. The introduction of these types were done after much careful market consideration, whereas Airbus seemed to simply design & build on whim...which explains their failing A380 program (which will never hit the 420-plane breakeven) and their failed A340 program.

As far as 'better'...Boeing has firmly demonstrated its superiority in regard to aircraft quality.

Answer 6

Could? Yes.
Would? That is a totally different proposition.
The A-380 is pretty close to the maximum size possible for a "classic" configuration (fuselage, wing, tail). The wing at the root is almost 1/3 the length of the fuselage, it cannot get much bigger.
Bigger airplanes are possible, but would require a change in the configuration like span loaders, lifting fuselage or blended wing design, as the approach is variously called. Since no jet airliner was ever built following that configuration, new construction techniques would be needed, and customer acceptance (a span loader has essentially no side windows, and you've seen people fight to get window seat...) is a major unknown.
So, we might see bigger plane, but not before at least 10 years (the A380 has been in the planning phase for that long, and despite its size, it is a relatively straightforward project, just a bigger one).

Answer 7

While Boeing could develope such a plane it hasn't yet as to do so is to invest huge amounts of money in a future design. I suspect that they will wait and see if the A-380 is successful in the market place and then build a bigger and better plane. While everybody is knocking the A-380 they ought to stop and think that eventually the airlines have to go much bigger planes as you can only fit so many planes in the airports at one time. With the ever increasing numbers of passengers you have to either put more planes in a already full airport or build new airports good luck with that or build much larger planes that handle the roots that smaller [planes used to handle. In the end I suspect it will be Airbus that gets the last laugh all the way to the bank as the go bigger approach is the only real solution to over crowded airports.

Answer 8

Probably, but the A380 is already too big. It is bad enough trying to get all the people onto and off of a 747. I doubt that the actual operating costs of the thing would make it cheaper per seat mile than a 747, let alone a 787.

Answer 9

its pretty much assured they have beaten them already,airbus keeps delaying the delivery of the a380.where as boeing is basically ready to ship.besides i wouldnt want to fly on a a380,i understand its built by the french

Answer 10

Dont know much but have you heard of the new Boeing 797 ? ? Some people told me about it I am not sure if its true.