Page 8 - AAA JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2019 Online Magazine

A380. But passengers love the showers and
they love the lounge.” And Clark is certainly cor-
rect about that. “The A380 is a great aircraft. If
airlines don’t believe they can fill an A380 then
their business model is wrong,” said Clark. “If
they can’t fill it there is something wrong with
their marketing.”

Clark at the time was not impressed with British
Airways layout which has First, Business Class
and Economy on the main deck and Business
Class, Premium Economy and Economy on the
upper deck with no lounge or showers. At the
time Clark said that the Airbus A380neo, with
new engines and aerodynamic improvements
would have excellent economics, as good as the
Boeing 777X.” Clark also cautioned in a 2017
interview with the Asian Airlines & Aerospace
that the world needs more A380s as a serious
airport runway capacity shortfall loom. “The
A380 is streets ahead of anything else when will solve that issue. Downunder in Australia, that is being embraced
it comes to capacity and is the only solution with Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth all building or planning more
to congestion at airports like Heathrow,” said runways, while Singapore has its third runway being connected
Clark. “And we are getting congestion now at to the main airport while Hong Kong is building another runway.
airports like New York’s John F Kennedy, at Beijing’s solution is to build the Beijing Daxing International Airport
Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Boston and many others. with four runways that opens in September, while in Dubai the Al
When we first went to JFK, we could have any Maktoum International Airport is designed to grow to six runways.
slot we wanted – now there is hardly any.” For Airbus the demise of the A380, on which it has been losing
money on every model, is the end of a very tough saga that has
Airbus figures in 2017 supported Mr Clark’s sapped the aerospace giants’ resources and pre-occupied it for
concerns that 39 of the current 47 mega cities the past 15 years.
are now congested. “There is a lack of runway
development at major airports across the globe A New Path
and there is no other solution than an A380,” Airbus’s initial response to the 787 suffered because of that preoc-
said Clark. And the issue of the mega cities is cupation with the A380 and was another five years before the A350
only going to grow as the number increases as we know it today finally emerged. The European giant needs
from the current 47 with more than 10,000 long its portfolio clear to focus on a better response to the high-end
haul passengers a day to a projected 91 mega of the 777X market and an all new aircraft to meet the emerging
cities by 2034. Only major runway expansion 797 challenge.

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