European manufacturer Airbus expects to deliver 14 (down from a planned 18) examples of its A380 very-large airliner (VLA) during 2009 and "more than 20" – but perhaps no more than 21 – next year. In this third article in a series of reports, Aviation Today Daily Brief reviews progress with the world's first quad-aisle twin-deck jetliner.

More by default than design, the A380 is providing an object lesson in market forces. There are fewer than 15 in service, flying with operators Emirates Airline, Qantas, and Singapore Airlines (SIA) from headquarters bases in three different regions of the world. You might expect, therefore, that the 11 routes thus far introduced in the A380's first 18 months of operations would not see their paths cross very much.

Not so. On one route, London-Sydney, all three carriers compete head on, albeit with one-stop service via their home hubs. Soon there will be two more operators, Air France and Lufthansa, flying from relatively close points in a single region – Paris (France) and Frankfurt (Germany) – with the former launching its first A380 service to New York.

All told, 16 customers have ordered 200 A380s, and the manufacturer has its pen ready to sign up many more. Ahead of the Paris Air Show, Airbus predicts that new customers will need a further 675 VLAs (including upcoming Boeing 747-800s and any further such designs), while existing A380 customers will add another 400 to current orders by 2026. (These numbers exclude orders already placed for 20 examples of the 747-800, a derivative of the incumbent 747-400.)

Airbus claims the A380 is providing the predicted lowest fuel-burn and operating cost, and increased revenues and operator’s market share. "The A3XX [its project name] promised a lot and the A380 'delivers'," says A380 product marketing director Richard Carcaillet.

By the beginning of May, Emirates, Qantas, and SIA had logged 41,000 flying hours during 4,200 revenue services that transported 1.5 million passengers – very low sums in international air-transport terms. Accordingly, argues it is too soon to have an adequate appreciation of reliability trends, especially given that long-range operations generate flight cycles very slowly. With so few A380s in service, there are "wide fluctuations" in available statistics, although Carcaillet reports three months of "delay-free" operation for the first-production machine, which "speaks volumes.”

He claims a 17% fuel-efficiency advantage for the A380 over the incumbent Boeing 747-400 competition, saying that with maximum passengers over 8,200nm it consumes up to 8% less fuel/seat than will the planned Boeing 747-800. Using as a standard "cash-operating cost/nett usable floor area," Airbus argues that the A380 is better than the 747-400, Boeing 777-300ER, and 747-800, by 31%, 22%, and 16%, respectively. According to Carcaillet, "The resultant economics not only boost profitability and stimulate demand, but can also enable a growth in market share while maintaining existing profit margins."

The new large airliner offers airlines mix 'n match flexibility, says Carcaillet. “Our analysis shows clear traffic growth and market share gains, with the A380 drawing more passengers–some from non-A380 operators on the same route.” He cites its potential on a route such as New York-Paris. He says a daily A380 flight could replace twice-daily services with an Airbus A340-300 and a 777-200, thus "offering equivalent total capacity, but with a cash-operating cost saving/passenger of 17%."

Or, 471-passenger A380s operating seven Singapore-Paris weekly flights could replace ten such services with 278-seat 777-300ERs: "Here the nett result is [a 20%] increase in total capacity/week and a [21%] reduction [in] cash-operating cost/ passenger [assuming 80% passenger load factors (PLFs)]." Airbus says operators could reduce annual costs by almost $8 million while adding 27,000 seats to route capacity. Carcaillet says A380 operators earn additional overall revenue because of improved PLFs and by establishing an "A380 premium" or a "step change in efficiency.”

Reduced A380 output this year was partly stimulated by a Qantas decision in April to defer four deliveries by 10-12 months. Airbus has put on a brave face, programs executive vice-president Tom Williams saying: "We were going from two/ month to three; we'll now go to 2.5." In mid-May, eight A380s were being furnished or painted at the company's Hamburg factory, with 11 more being assembled in Toulouse.

SIA has recently confirmed imminent delivery of two A380s with three more to come in 2009. The new arrivals will join the Singapore-Paris route. Emirates plans Dubai-Toronto and -Bangkok services using A380s withdrawn from the Dubai-New York route following a recession-hit decline in traffic. Carcaillet calls this adjustment the result of "normal airline management" – or, to put it another way, market forces.