Sticking It to Airports. The European consortium Airbus Industrie is making a huge imposition upon the world's airport authorities to accommodate its huge new double-decker airplane, the A380. The New York Times reports in tomorrow's edition how much it will cost for one airport, New York's JFK International:

At Kennedy, where the runways were laid out in 1948, anticipating the A380 led to a $179 million modernization program. Further changes could raise the tab to around $300 million.

[A] major taxiway at Kennedy from the runway to the terminal had to be moved so that the A380’s wings would not hang over the edge and the plane could turn without hitting the terminal. [In addition, a whole new taxiway had to be built to runway 13.] * * *

Airbus has tried to fend off criticism about the A380 requiring costly airport overhauls. It has issued press releases outlining “myths” about the plane and making the case that the A380 will be more efficient in getting passengers on and off and can, for the most part, use existing runways.

Runways. Not taxiways. Not terminals.
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How many billions of dollars will the airports of the world have to spend to accommodate this one model of airplane, money they would not have to spend for any other airliner? And who will pay for those improvements? Airbus? You can safely bet your ass that the arrogant manufacturer that is inflicting these costs on taxpayers and air passengers (most of whom won't even ride in the A380 but will be charged higher landing fees for every flite into an affected airport, on every plane) will not be paying for the required 'improvements'.
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Some airport administrators are glad to see more passengers on a single plane, as could reduce the number of planes taking off and landing in any given period. Quoting The New York Times again:

While most carriers say they will put 550 or so passengers in the A380, the craft is certified to carry up to 853 [passengers only? or passengers and crew?] — about twice the number carried in the biggest version of the Boeing 747.

What of the dangers? In one horrendous 1977 incident, in the Canary Islands, two Boeing 747s crashed into each other. 583 people were killed in the worst aviation disaster in history — so far. That's only 33 more than a single A380 can carry in its least crowded seat configuration. What happens if two A380s crash into each other? Might the death toll be double the present worst toll, 583? Even more? 853 x 2 is 1,706 — and that's counting only people who were in the planes, not anyone on the ground who might be hit by the crashing planes or by debris cast far and wide by the impact, or burned by the fires all around that might be set off by the fireball such a crash could produce.
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What if even one of these enormous planes crashes? Tho we can certainly hope that there will never be such a crash, there is absolutely no reason on Earth to believe that.
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How many cities can handle hundreds and hundreds of critically injured patients from one incident, at the same time? How many hospitals would that take? How many ambulances? How many people would die before ambulances could even get to them, much less whisk them to such hospitals as might be available within life-saving distance? And if fire is a major element in the injuries sustained, how many cities have burn units big enuf to accommodate more than a tiny fraction of the hundreds who might be severely burned in an A380 crash?
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What if a plane eight stories tall, with a wingspan wider than a football field is long, crashes short of an airport, in one of the major cities that the A380 is designed to "serve"?
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That's an ordinary accident, and accidents do happen. But what if an A380 is hijacked by fanatical terrorists and used as a missile? Is there a building or tite cluster of buildings anywhere in the world that could survive such an impact?
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There are some new creations of technology that we really should "Just Say No" to. The A380 is one. And I will fite any attempt to make my city's airport, Newark International,* spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring this incredibly dangerous plane roaring over my town. Remember the American Airlines flite 587 crash** in Queens six years ago? We do around here.
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Airbus Go Home!
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* I refuse the moronic addition "Liberty" to the perfectly good name "Newark International".

** 265 dead.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,218 — for Israel.)




- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:02 PM