Airbus A380 'not as green as it's painted'

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

The new A380 superjumbo may end up having a bigger carbon footprint than its makers claim, thanks to the way airlines are fitting it out.

First class suite, airbus a380 not as green as it's painted
The large first class suites have left fewer economy seats on the A380

Airbus says that the aircraft, the biggest passenger jet in the world, is also one of the most environmentally friendly ever built, with carbon emissions of just 75g per passenger per km – 17 per cent less than is emitted by the old Boeing 747s.

But those calculations assume that the aircraft will have 525 seats and fly full. In theory, the A380 can hold 853 economy seats. In reality, airlines are adapting the design to expand profitable first- and business-class sections, leaving fewer economy seats. As they do so, the passengers' environmental footprint will grow.


Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/10/27/et-airbus-green-127.xml

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This article exposes more Airbus propaganda. The Boeing 747-8 and 787 are actually more fuel efficient than the European behemoth.

It will be a funeral directors dream crash.

That's a crazy thing to cite as a negative toward this aircraft.... Like someone said below, more people die on the highways everyday than they would if a one these at capacity crashed.

"I wish I could say that wind turbines and solar panels will save us," Lovelock responds. "But I can't. There isn't any kind of solution possible. There are nearly 7 billion people on the planet now, not to mention livestock and pets. If you just take the CO2 of everything breathing, it's twenty-five percent of the total --four times as much CO2 as all the airlines in the world. So if you want to improve your carbon footprint, just hold your breath. It's terrifying. We have just exceeded all reasonable bounds in numbers. And from a purely biological view, any species that does that has a crash."

We should be preparing for a very bleak future so it's not unsurvivable.

Read the entire article for free, here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock/1

I'm sure his predictions are always as accurate as they have been.

juice box?

I read about a scenario like that in a Douglas Adams book. Was it Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

Those things are punishments from an angry God.

Seriously?

That is what she said last night............:rofl: :rofl: :hi:

If you tried to put 853 people and their luggage on one of those planes, it might be too heavy to take off.

... that in itself could be a show-stopper.

The rest of the world doesn't have that problem, at least not as much as the US.

... and from what I've seen, we also are experiencing the "expanding luggage" (ahem) issue.

is in its well-designed wings and its powerful engines. It can certainly carry a full load. If Boeing had created it, given it a different-looking nose, and called it the 797, I guarantee the people who hate it would love it and the people who love it would hate it.

Much of this is probably stemming from the Boeing v. Airbus debate.

An SUV is a pig because it's usually a big vehicle moving a small number of people. Here you're got a very large vehicle moving a very large number of people. Passenger aircraft are more like a city bus than an SUV.

Sid

Green is something like cost/benefit.

if it costs few envinronmental damage and does a lot of benefit to people, it's green.

What about those two google guys who have their own jumbo jet??
Bad bad jumbo jet!! Be greener!!!

Not the things are bad, it's what you do them.

But I guess that since it's 'merkan company, it get a pass? At least Airbus respects it's workers and their rights.

Or just post unsubstantiated speculation?

... in the OP ... or did you think it was "unbiased"? :eyes:

Airbus has gone out of its way to talk up how great and wonderful the A380 is to the environment, which no one who performs research in aviation technology (as I do) believes is anything more than hogwash.

what a ridicules story.

As the story says, a fully loaded 747 is produces lower emissions per passenger than a fully loaded A380, even though the A380 carries more people. Airbus should have pursued better technology in its design, but that would have reduced profit margin. Not that the A380 is in any danger of turning a profit anyway...

The A380 is a miracle of modern design, much as the 787 promises to be. It is not Airbus's fault that its launch customers are moving more upscale than Airbus originally projected. Let's take an analogy:

You have a bus company, Groundbus. They make buses. Groundbus creates a new double-decker bus that can carry more people than the old buses could, making it more fuel-efficient, despite its larger size. However, a few of its customers decide to turn the entire top deck into a lounge instead of packing people into it.

That does not mean that Groundbus lied when they said their bus was more fuel-efficient.

> That does not mean that Groundbus lied when they said their bus was
> more fuel-efficient.

Groundbus would only "lie" if they were European whereas their American
competitor (Boing) can only tell the "truth" ...
:shrug:

You are exactly right with your interpretation: it is the buyers/users
who have the final call on how much of the improved efficiency they
choose to dump for "business" reasons - and this applies regardless of
who produces the plane (or who is attacking it).

Your theory hinges on two unproven assertions:

1. That airlines will on average chooe to seat 17% fewer people than a traditional three-class layout would suggest.
2. That 747s will not be subject to the same phenomenon.

I mean, don't get me wrong. The A380 is ugly as sin and it will take more than a few lucky breaks for it to turn a profit. But if fuel pressures cause the hub-and-spoke model to expand and the point-to-point model to contract, and if Asian market growth outpaces expectations, Airbus may stumble into having a winner here. The A380 isn't selling great, but the 747-8 is doing awfully.

On the other hand, the 787 is kicking ass. I'd say that's the safe money, especially if the A350 doesn't catch fire.