Emirates

[JENNYJET]

Rutamkrd has planted a little worm in my mind by suggesting the Chinese may come along with something that may suit their home market for moving people efficiently across the vastness of China.

But how about the Russians? They did dream up the large Antonov frames during Soviet times in occupied Ukraine, they have the time, the money and the inventive mindset and then you have Illyushin.

A twin engine version of A380 would find favourably can we call it A370? I much prefer 4 engines for peace of mind over oceanic routes since there can be no guarantee a twin will not fail. I accept engines are technically far in advance of earlier RB211s and the newer Trent series are wonderful but they can develop issues unforeseen during development.

I shall rest there so as not to annoy moderators further for drifting of topic of Emirates.

 

[Brum X]

Long live the Emirates A380 at BHX

It has pride of place on a poster in my spare room.

Would of been nice to see Virgin Atlantic in the A380 but that was not meant to be.

 

[BHXsupporter]

Not easy to make an uglier aircraft than the A380 but they would succeed with that

 

[JENNYJET]

At least it is a Euro ugly duck!


Compared with the Dreamliner, I think A380 is beautiful. The French have something the Americans never had, elegance!

 

[rollo]

Correct JENNY JET the French do have a degree of elegance but the Yanks have the money, although personally I think the 380 is also an ugly thing and not a patch on a DH Comet or VC10.

Eye of the beholder I suppose.

 

[JENNYJET]

A little late now but if the A380 had the face of the Beluga XL ( A337 ) it may have won a few more admirers. And ROLLOVER is correct The old jets like the Comet and VC10 had that special something called character.

 

[Ray Finkle]

As enjoyable as this chat has been I think the time has now come to bring this thread back to Emirates.

The Avgeek forum has a thread dedicated to airline liveries and I think one about aircraft types (if not maybe somebody could start one).

 

[GliderPilot]

I am really intrigued as to Emirates' plan for the future.

Are they only reducing their aircraft size to account for rising oil prices, or is there other factors? I personally would guess that they are preparing for route consolidation in the future

I say this as we've seen far too often over-expansion take airlines completely out of the market. Emirates has seen exponential growth over the last 10 (maybe more) years, and with all the new markets it is developing the traffic will be high volume, but when the dust settles so to speak will they be able to fill A380's over and over again? This may be one of the reasons they are reverting to the A330 and the newer A350 (I say reverting as Emirates had a fleet of 29 A330's at one point, now zero). The more fuel-efficient twin-engine aircraft with lower loads may manage to produce a higher yield for the airline keeping it profitable far into the future.

I suppose my point is it can't be just oil prices responsible for these orders, considering the UAE's position geographically anyway.

That's just my AvGeek take at their reasons behind their recent aircraft orders anyway.

I'm sure it will be a right mix in the future as to what Emirates aircraft we see at BHX

 

[mullion]

I think they are getting squeezed at Manchester for certain as when they started they were the only kid on the block
and had connections to all over Asia and Africa now ther is Etihad, Qatar, Oman Air, Singapore, Cathay, Hainan, Ethiopian
and Jet and at Birmingham you have Air India and Qatar all after the same business

 

[Ianbutty]

They could just be facing a reality of rising fuel costs and long term reduction of passengers. There is no guarantee that growth in air travel will continue at the rate that led to the A380 and smaller aircraft will suit their post 2030 needs better. Remember that the 380's have a good 20 years left in them.

 

[Coathanger16]

I think another reason for the smaller aircraft is there are some markets that just aren't big enough for either the A380 or B777.

Whereas both Qatar and Etihad have narrow body aircraft in their fleets, the smallest aircraft Emirates has is the B777. Consider the long haul destinations BHX is targeting (New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, Beijing, Mumbai, etc). Personally I think a B777-300ER would be too much capacity on those routes, and aircraft such as the B787 or A350 would be much better suited. Also consider Emirates doesn't usually launch a route with much less than a daily service.

The big hubs and the busier regional airports are pretty much covered by Emirates now. There's not much more they can grow at the large hubs (Heathrow is already 6 daily A380's), and for many of the regional airports increasing frequency by adding another A380 or even B777 is just too much.

Personal prediction, Emirates will use the:

- A330neo to launch new services into smaller markets (wouldn't be surprised to see Belfast with an A330neo in the next 5 years).

- A350-900 to increase frequency on routes where a B777 would be too much

Some examples of the latter could be:

- Reinstating the morning BHX service with an A350
- Changing one or more of the current single daily B777 services at Stansted, Edinburgh or Glasgow to a double daily A350

With Emirates having ordered the B777X, and now the A350-900 and Airbus cancelling production of the A380, I wouldn't be surprised if Emirates pushes Airbus to stretch the A350 again beyond the A350-1000. Boeing is also considering stretching the B777-9. Both of those aircraft would be able to almost or even match the A380 for capacity (consider that Air Canada configures some of their B777-300ER's to have more seats than some airlines configure their A380's with!).

 

[mullion]

A350X is a big plane being less than 1/4 m shorter and 4 m wider than B773 and 1.25m shorter than A346
B779 will be just shy of 80M which will cause a lot of problems at some airports. I believe that BHX cannot take an
A35X and I know it can`t take an A346 because of the undercarriage length and even MAN has problems at present
on some stands because of turning circle

 

[Coathanger16]

A350X is a big plane being less than 1/4 m shorter and 4 m wider than B773 and 1.25m shorter than A346
B779 will be just shy of 80M which will cause a lot of problems at some airports. I believe that BHX cannot take an
A35X and I know it can`t take an A346 because of the undercarriage length and even MAN has problems at present
on some stands because of turning circle

I'd honestly be surprised if BHX couldn't take the A350-1000 as its basically an Airbus clone of the B777-300ER (certainly in terms of dimensions).

Just to clarify though, Emirates hasn't (yet) ordered the A350-1000, but they have ordered the A350-900 which has the same wingspan as the B777-300ER (and the -1000) but is about 7m shorter, so BHX shouldn't have any problems handling it - I know the problem with the A346 is the gear span/turning radius, but I don't think the A350 suffers from that (at least I've not heard of any issues)

 

[mullion]

It`s the undercarriage layout that is the problem not the size of the aircraft and the A35X is quite similar to A346
same as A359 is similar to A343 of which can get into BHX.

 

[JENNYJET]

Let us hope that Emirates maintain services here with any aircraft but note they moved on their A340 series. I am saddened that some aircraft have issues with manoeuvres at airports . Is Birmingham classed as premier league or Conference standard? Simplistic maybe but this really does irritate me.

 

[BHXsupporter]

Absolutely Jenny. IS it really too much to update the taxiways to lead to moree effective single runway use, faster exits and appropriate width/radii to take all commercial planes.

 

[Coathanger16]

Absolutely Jenny. IS it really too much to update the taxiways to lead to moree effective single runway use, faster exits and appropriate width/radii to take all commercial planes.

Some if not all of those things are included in the master plan. The thing is they haven't previously been needed and even now they're not desperately needed.

 

[rollo]

Maybe they could get runway 33 back up to CAT3 first, much more useful.

 

[JENNYJET]

Is having a CAA license for airport ops dependent upon having CAT3 capabilities?

 

[Scottie Dog]

In a nutshell the answer is "no".