Airliners.net

I hear and see many arguing for and against the Whale Jet. Also now argued as the Whake-Jet. I don't care.

What I want to know is what the cost will be to operate, what will be the true economics.

What is the CASM curve weighted against stage length.

What is the Break even load given present day average fares on Dehli to Dubai, Dubai to LHR, LHR to LAX, CDG to LAX, FRA to Singapore?

The success of the Whale will be based on one issue PROFITABILITY, not whether it is a feat of engineering, or if we like E.U. engineering vs. American.
There is no question that both Americans and Europeans can build hi-tech jets, the question is not which is better the question is whether the airlines can make money on the bird.

I suspect a longhaul CASM of 8 cents will be a killer, I suspect a CASM of 4 cents will make this bird work. But what will it be.

Will the A380 have a better CASM than the B787 and what about the supposed A350xwb?

Pure speculation I would say...
But there will be loads of people willing to do exactly this! I don't...
Good luck with this thread...

I landed in Mumbai in 2002, two 747s arrived within an hour of each other. It took me six hours to get out of the airport. It took me 2 hours to get a luggage cart, one hour to inch my way to the carts, an hour to get back close enough to just see the luggage carousel, 4 more hours to get out of the airport.

CASM is important, but the airlines have to have a product that it's clients want to purchase. I cringe at standing in line at immigration/customs with 550 people from one flight, plus the traffic from the rest of the airport.

I would love to have a flight on the 380, maybe 3 hours in F class, go up, fly around, check out the bars, feel the ride quality in moderate turbulence, check out a maximum performance takeoff, I want a tour of the plane including airframe/engines and especially the avionics.

But to tell you something, if I am traveling on an international flight, I'd prefer to fly a 320, 330, 767 or a T7, in no particular order (340 omitted intentionally).

Can you imagine ponied up to 4 baggage carousels at MIA wondering which will spew your 2 bags, or which 2 of the 4 will spew your two checked bags?

I'm taking a wait and see before I book a flight on a 380 route.

I apologize for not being able to answer any of your questions, but I suspect that nobody really will be able to until it goes into service. But earlier this year I did an r/t LHR DXB trip. The lady sitting next to me in Business class paid 100 quid for a standby econ ticket, and was upgraded to Business for free.

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): What is the CASM curve weighted against stage length.

One can get a rough sense of this by looking at the Z-curve and the weights.

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): What is the Break even load given present day average fares on Dehli to Dubai, Dubai to LHR, LHR to LAX, CDG to LAX, FRA to Singapore?

That depends on a large number of assumptions.

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): The success of the Whale will be based on one issue PROFITABILITY, not whether it is a feat of engineering, or if we like E.U. engineering vs. American. There is no question that both Americans and Europeans can build hi-tech jets, the question is not which is better the question is whether the airlines can make money on the bird.

  

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): I suspect a longhaul CASM of 8 cents will be a killer, I suspect a CASM of 4 cents will make this bird work.

Probably, but that's a broad range.   What matters is not absolute CASM, but CASM relative to its competitors such as the A350, B787, and B747-8I SuperJumbo.

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): But what will it be.

What will be the price of fuel?

Quoting BillReid (Thread starter): Will the A380 have a better CASM than the B787 and what about the supposed A350xwb?

The B787-9 is expected to have about the same or a slightly higher CASM than the WhaleJet. The B787-10 is expected to have a lower CASM than the WhaleJet. Not as much is known yet about the A350, but the A350-1000 should be somewhere in the same CASM class.