Airbus to Unveil Largest Passenger Jet

Airbus shows off a freakishly huge jet.

The A380, a four-aisle, four-engine, double-decker "superjumbo," will roll onto the tarmac Tuesday at Airbus headquarters in southern France, in a lavish ceremony attended by EU leaders and thousands of guests.
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Over the next 20 years, Airbus sees global demand for 1,250 A380-size behemoths to shuttle passengers between the world's largest airports, which serve as connecting hubs for flights to less busy destinations.
More than half the new superjumbos will fly between just 10 major airports, Airbus forecasts, mainly in Asia. Singapore Airlines Ltd. is scheduled to become the first carrier to operate the A380, in the second half of 2006.
Chicago-based Boeing Co., like Airbus, expects overall air passenger traffic to increase threefold over the next two decades. But Boeing forecasts only 'a few hundred' sales of very large planes, as travelers reject stopovers in favor of direct service aboard smaller long-range jets � like its fuel-efficient 7E7 Dreamliner, due to enter service in 2008.
'The data shows unquestionably that passengers, when they can, want to fly from wherever they are to wherever they're going, without having to connect in a hub,' said Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher. 'The A380 is flying into the headwind of reality.'
But Boeing, which delivered 285 planes in 2004 to Airbus' 320, is hedging its bets. It announced plans last year for a larger, 450-seat 747, despite having dismissed the case for a bigger plane since Airbus began discussing the concept in 1991. A launch decision is expected in mid-2005.
Whichever way the wind blows in Toulouse on Tuesday, the A380 seems certain to become a milestone in civil aviation history alongside the 747 and Concorde. Unlike the supersonic Concorde, however, whose claim to fame was how fast it crossed the Atlantic, this latest fruit of European aerospace cooperation will ultimately be judged on how fast it makes money.

OK, you got some of the main points. Discussion on reducing the weight of airplanes is quite boring, and therefore skipable.

Personally, I think Airbus and Boeing are simply looking at different groups of people when they decide whether customers want large flights from hub to hub or flights directly from point A to point B, no matter where A and B are. I've never heard a European complain about connecting flights, but Americans probably do so as much as we complain about security, and more than we complain about food. Thus, the European A380 will be more popular in Europe, while America's Boeing airplanes will be popular in the US. Perhaps the difference has something to do with the fact that European countries are geographically smaller than the US, so connecting flights or drives to the final destination are not as long.

I'll list the common and annoying, though not major, problems with air travel, and we'll see how Airbus really does:
1: reduce the noise. Can you just put the engine farther out on the wing or something? I know it's a pain to pack more insulation into the fuselage (which is actually the part where the passengers sit), but perhaps a bit more should be considered.
2: a section for fat people. Fatties have sued airlines which, rightfully, have charged passengers weighing more than a quarter of a ton for the two seats that their excess lard occupies. A very, very fat person has no chance of fitting in one seat; if they try, they will spill well into the two adjacent seats. Thus, it is better for an armrest to be moved so the fatty can have a pair of seats. This also reduces the stress on the chair, which just might buckle if required to hold upwards of 500 pounds (though that's probably impossible). There was actually one case where a woman suffered severe medical problems because something like 200 pounds of lard from a gargantuan freak was resting on her for a 12-hour trip. I can't believe that there were no psychological problems as well.
3: some better food. Technically, airline food isn't that bad, due to all the artificial chemicals; but, for the price of the ticket, something slightly better should be provided. In 1st class, desert (yeah, desert) might include a surprisingly good slice of cheesecake; maybe such should be implemented for the entire plane (except for those in the fat section, they are given only Slimfast).
4: decent airline movies. Find quality, major-budget films that can be watched over and over again without making people want to kill themselves (thus, not the Star Wars prequel trilogy), and show them. On those 12-hour+ flights, show the entire Lord of the Rings series. Or, just have some portable DVD players that passengers have to return on their way off the airplane, and have a stockpile of DVD's (or just broadcast the DVD over the wires that previously were for the unused radio station thing, so you need only a few DVD's and passengers can select what they want to watch, if you want to be cheap).
5: bigger, better ventilated bathrooms. A few inches, maybe even a foot, increase in size would be great. That way, it would actually be possible to fit, even for those of us who are in shape.
6: better ventilation. The plane is moving at hundreds of miles per hour, and you can't scope any fresh air into the plane (pressurize it, of course)? Do you not allow fresh air in the belief that low oxygen levels will help passengers go to sleep faster? Sorry to tell you, but that's not working too well! If you want to do that, put a very mild sleeping/drowsyness agent into the drinks or peanuts (at the very least, make those bags bigger, too).

I wonder how many of these problems either of the major aircraft makers will work to fix.