Word: new
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...party to the skies. There are six bars on the plane, which encourages passengers to mingle (in their own class, of course). In the front of the upper deck, in the business section, there's even an art gallery of sorts: flat-screen TVs displaying digital previews of the New York and Paris cultural scenes, a somewhat lavish use of space...
...Like all new jetliners, the A380 was controversial in conception, delayed in construction and years late on arrival. But none could have predicted that the A380 would fly into the most turbulent economy in the history of aviation. Air France ordered a dozen of the $300 million aircraft in 2000, when the economic forecast called for steady growth. By the time Air France took delivery nine years later, the industry was on its knees and the big-spending investment bankers whose business- and first-class tickets make up the bulk of airline profits had largely evaporated...
...Aircraft analyst Richard L. Aboulafia of Teal Group has called the A380 "the worst product launch decision since New Coke." The A380 was born in a hub-and-spoke world where flights between countries were regulated. Now, airlines are freer to go point-to-point, avoiding the major hubs - and making 800-passenger megajets less necessary. (Emirates, the first to fly the A380 into New York City, quietly withdrew the plane from its JFK flights...
...Analysts such as Aboulafia see a future that favors Boeing's smaller, all-composite 787 (assuming it ever gets built). Airbus is already developing a new not-so-jumbo jet, the A350, for that purpose. But Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon is sticking by his hub strategy. The skies are getting crowded, and he'd rather have the A380 to collect passengers in Paris from all over Europe and deliver them to places like New York and Johannesburg. "It's just like the big cities today," he says. "It doesn't make sense to add a lot of small...
...jetizens aboard the A380 as it made a somewhat wobbly landing, some of whom have come from as far as Australia to be among the first to fly it, the arguments about economics and hub-and-spoke miss the point. The Air France A380 is new, massive, filled with technology and right now the only one flying the Atlantic's most glamorous route. It's a glimpse of better days, when flying was still an adventure, even if it never ceases to be a chore...