Originally posted by larsv
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If there are engines out there now, that are more efficient - why are they not already on The Whale?
A stretched version - who would want it? EK, again to convert orders? No Japanese customers (for HD-Seating). Who else would want more plane? Does anyone have that much demand? Put a few more suites in? Or, worse - put in more coach and still sell at a high price for 'novelty of the service'? The great gain would have been to cargo carriers - which, to be honest, is a scary proposition. However that version was cancelled, and I can't think of any other carrier out there who would have wanted to buy one by now, and not have done it.
The dream was to have every Asian carrier fly one or two to LAX daily, to have American Carriers fly to reciprocate, to reposition and to get onto Trans-Atlantic especially into LHR, CDG, FRA, e.t.c. Euro carriers each would have a few to touch JFK, LAX, MIA, YYZ. But, how did it pan out? Save for the atrocious economy that we survived, the new reality out there (perhaps even temporarily with gas being so low in price) is still better for not ordering the type. Those dreams never panned out, and so it's time to focus on the A350, and the new A320 family.
Consider for a second that this recent Russian Ruble Run has thrown a carrier like Transaero onto the fence about their order to begin with. Where in the hell were they planning on flying those aircraft anyway? That many people want to go from Moscow to Vladivistock? Crimea needs a "Berlin Airlift"? Can Cuba handle an A380? Would they even want to considering how quickly the diplomatic walls between Cuba and the U.S. are thinning, and falling. JFK? LAX? LHR? With this NEO-Cold-War climate?
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