Covid19, the airline industry. Where do we go from here?

a reply to: thebozeian

I saw where Qantas has suspended deliveries until at least the end of the year. Qatar was the one that said at least a year for their A380s. They're downsizing their fleet by 25%. Al Baker doesn't think we'll see any kind of significant bounce back until 2023/24.

a reply to: Blackfinger
I tend to think you are right. The top end is usually only effected by economic downturns in the immediate period and recovers reasonably quickly. I expect the likes of Boom, Aerion, Hypermach etc to still be working on development as they have gained funding. And in any case we wont realistically see a commercial flying aircraft type or types in any meaningful numbers until the second half of this decade. But it will happen.

a reply to: thebozeian

Another aspect of this that can't be underestimated is the appeal of small SSTs for the long-distance carriers like Turkish, Emirates/Etihad/Qatar, Singapore, Cathay Pacific, etc that all service huge volumes of high end travelers on long routes that pass either over water or over 3rd world countries that don't care (or have officials who can be paid not to care) about sonic booms over their territory.

It's far more likely for the economy-end of those carriers business to be effected than the high end, and the Boom SST will sit about as many passengers as there are 1st class seats on an A380 or a 777-300ER, so their executives may opt for a long-term plan based on sending their A380s and 777s off to be turned into Coors cans while downsizing to 787s and 797s for their economy-end passengers and SSTs for the high end.

Also, if oil prices stay cratered, SSTs will be the most attractive that they've been in 30-40 years.

a reply to: thebozeian
There is always going to be a need for someone to be on the other side of the world in a hurry.Either they go SST or they have to start funneling money into Star Trek transport beams..

a reply to: Barnalby
One of the great things about the push for this technology is that sonic boom disturbance is being tackled by basically all the companies involved in research for the next generation of SST's. Additionally we are finally seeing some meaningful movement by Govt's, particularly the US to redraft and loosen up the restrictions on supersonic travel around these new boomless/low boom technologies. You wont actually have to direct flights over water or exploit third world countries as a result. If some of the work by people like HyperMach is to believed (and I remain somewhat skeptical of the claims) we will see SST's with intercontinental range with fuel burn SFC's of around 1.0 or so. And while in isolation that's high by latest engines like GE's Passport which is claiming an SFC of 0.614 at high subsonic speed and alt, its actually pretty good if they can hit well above Mach 3.0 as Hypermach is claiming.

I wouldn't go writing off the current large airframes yet, at least not until the end of the decade. And newer models like the 777X/A-350-1000 etc will become the mainstay. 380's/748/77-300ER will be around for a few years yet, albeit in reduced numbers for some, and the cargo market is largely exempt from this argument. 787 and similar from Airbus will act as feeders or thin route specialists, and no doubt Boeing will need to offer an NG of that in the next 5 years or so to remain relevant, Airbus is already talking about a NEO 350 for a couple of years on what has been a very well taken up and largely trouble free aircraft generation. Ten years from now this will all seem like a bad dream, albeit with a long wake up.

Delta will retire all 18 777s by the end of the year.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Haha I was about to post it. I wonder which US majors won't make it through this.

a reply to: Barnalby

If I had to bet, American. They were hurting pretty badly with cash on hand, and their fleet.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ooof, I know a couple guys who started at Envoy last year, that'll suck bigtime if it's a large major like American that goes down. I wonder how much of it would be gobbled up by the other two?

a reply to: Barnalby

IATA is predicting 2024 to get back to normal passenger numbers. So I suspect we're going to see some consolidation between now and then. I wouldn't be surprised to see American in another reverse merger with someone, or something similar.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Every time I flew American (And I fly a lot) I would question my sanity for giving Them my money in the first place. I avoid them like the plague unless I had to. The worse customer service ever, not including late the flights missing connections. Alaska airlines being the best airline in my experience.

Came across this just now.

a reply to: 38181

I was watching a show about them one day, and they were bragging about the insane ways they were saving money, and I just had to shake my head and wonder how they survived this long.

Emirates announced they're permanently grounding 46 A380s, and laying off 30% of cabin crew and pilots. They recently announced they'd be 20-30% smaller after this is over.

www.paddleyourownkanoo.com... and-pilots/

Etihad is the next to get rid of the A380, and may also choose not to operate the A350.

This thread has a lot about the Aircraft industries but what about the strategies. Recent years it is the Hub and Spoke, for example "usually" my flights out of Australia have either been via the middle east (mainly Singapore) or via LA.

But these hubs, when considering a respiratory disease in a pandemic are breeding grounds or transfer stations where even one person can infect many others.

So lets say we stop the hubs, middle east will lose a sh1ttonne of money, LA, not so much as its only really a hub to America, you could probably put a control in their.

Will we see smaller point to point aircraft, which may mean thousands of smaller aircraft in the skies, imagine 5 services per week Sydney to Washington DC in a Supersonic extended Learjet?

But say China (insert any country here) who we may not trust, they have to fly to the hub in LA to spend 14 days quarantined.

So the likes of Boeing and Airbus, I wonder if they are investing in new designs right now or just relying on a vaccine that puts the industry back where it was before?