Airbus A380
A double-deck wide-body: the largest bet placed on aviation's hub-and-spoke model.
Overview
The A380 is an airliner with two passenger decks running its full length. The assumption behind the design was that traffic would concentrate at large hubs and that very large aircraft would be needed between them.
The industry went another way: long-range twins became able to carry passengers directly without routing them through a hub. Production ended earlier than expected.
This is a failure of assumption rather than of engineering. The aircraft met its targets; what was wrong was the forecast about future network structure — and most of the costliest mistakes in vehicle design are of that kind.
Details
- Brand
- Airbus
- Category
- Wide-body Airliner
- Body
- Double-deck wide-body
- Propulsion
- turbofan
- Produced
- 2007–2021