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Comment by billfruit | Hacker News Reader

I think there may be a future for 747 and even the A380 in the domestic routes in Indian and China. I can only wonder at the huge amounts of passenger traffic once a larger percentage of the population comes to dependent upon air travel.

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Not with the current models. They were constructed for long haul flights and frequent takeoffs and landings on rather short haul routes will result in a faster degradation of the airframe, meaning safety concerns and high maintenance costs. That’s why Bowing came up with the 787-3 (which was cancelled)

Boeing used to make a specialized 747SR model optimized for domestic short haul routes in Japan. It had a stronger structure and lower fuel capacity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747#747SR

They're long-haul airliners though. They're not economic to run on short routes. For the routes you're describing, running more A320s (or similar) would be much more economic and would be better for passengers since flights would depart more often, giving more flexibility in travel plans.

There isn't a jet in existence that's optimized for ultra-high capacity and short routes, and there isn't a market for one either. You can count on one hand the number of airports in the world that are seriously limited by number of arrival/departure pairs. Heathrow is #1.

depending on what short routes means, airports are generally out of the way, and there are ridiculous check-ins and screenings that just makes them less feasible. you can add +1 hour for each.

Say I want to fly from Philadelphia to NYC, add more than 2 hours for getting to/from airports, and check-ins/screenings. But I can take a train in an hour and a half, and that drops me off in manhatan. I didnt even need to get de-belted, de-shoed, and throw away my sun screen and water bottle. And I wont be bumped off my seat because some senator doesn't like to book tickets in a timely manner.

humiliations aside, when I use to fly pittsburgh/philadelphia, i found that the train or bus was not a significant increase in time. The train/buses I could take and get off in the city centers, where as the airports added additional 2.5 hours time. but when you factored in waiting 30 minutes to get my baggage from baggage claim, time spent sitting on the runway, time having to show up early to get checked in and numerous security lines, it wasn't that much savings in time. I was paying about 300$ for 1.5-2 hour savings in time for a much more stressful experience.

A short-haul route is anything up to 1,500 km. NYC to Philly is one-tenth of that.

China southern runs a 380 between Guangzhou and Beijing. But it won’t last forever: china is building lots of new airports to take pressure off its big city airports and provide more direct routes; while the big city airports are expanding and aiming to provide more frequent service betterment handled by smaller planes.

Plus the large network of high-speed rail that AFAIK will be a direct competitor for internal flights in China.

True, though HSR is often more expensive than flights in my experience. Also, china rail makes buying a ticket from a remote location obscenely difficult (like buying Guangzhou to Beijing from Beijing), and so often it’s just much easier to get a flight on ctrip (hence why I had to take that 380!).

Not willingly. The rumor is, none of the Chinese carriers wanted to buy 380, but the Chinese govt sorta promised the French govt. In the end China Southern agreed to take them, in exchange for some hot international routes like Beijing to Paris. By the time the planes were delivered, the official who promised the routes were long gone, and the new one refused to honor the deal. In the end, the poor carrier is stuck with those huge planes and no suitable routes to fly them. They are apparently bleeding money.

To be fair, the plane was full when I was on it, but maybe that was because of the cancelled flights (one of them ours) that were rebooked onto it.

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