Changes Brought About by Jumbo Jets and Airbus A380

When United States entered into space race with Soviet Union in the 60s, the aviation industry benefited tremendously from NASA's space technologies. It happened at a time when increasing demand for air travel sparked a new generation of commercial aircrafts: Jumbo Jets. The commercial aviation industry was committed to a scale up in aircraft size that led to significant increase in airline seating capacity.

Commercial aviation industry was booming in the 60s and aircraft manufacturers tried to get a piece of the action in this golden era of commercial aviation. There were different arenas in which manufacturers competed fiercely for their market share. British's Concorde and Soviet's Tupolev-144 were competing for their spot in the commercial SST supersonic transport market. The big three US aircraft manufacturers (Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed) each had its own entry in the "jumbo jet" market: Boeing 747, McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed's TriStar. Pratt Whitney and Rolls Royce came with their own entries in the aircraft jet engine market.

The story did not end there. It had a significant impact to the aviation industry as a whole. When compared to the aircrafts in service at the time (Boeing 707, Boeing 727, VC-10, Comet 4, Caravelle, etc.), these jumbo jets are significant bigger. All airport operators were forced to upgrade their airport facilities and handling equipment or could not service these new aircrafts.

Around the world, airport runways had to be lengthened. New airport handling equipment needed to be redesigned and built. Airport facilities needed to be upgraded to handle these new jet transports. Aviation trade journals (e.g. McGraw Hill's Aviation Week & Space Technology, etc.) gave detailed coverage to new airport facilities and equipment just as much as they gave coverage to new aircrafts under development.

Airbus A380 is huge when compared to today's Boeing 747 or MD-80. Airbus A380 creates the same problems for the airport operators, that it serves, just like the Jumbo Jets did in the 60s and 70s. However, it does not create the same kind of excitement like the Jumbo Jets did to the aviation industry. It is a one-aircraft phenomenon. No Boeing's participation here. The scope can never be compared to the industry-wide size upgrade in the 60s. On top of that, airlines will only use Airbus A380 in their profitable long-haul high-traffic routes, where airport landing slots are hard to come by. Otherwise, airlines can easily address their traffic demand with few smaller aircrafts, (e.g. Boeing 747, Boeing 777, Boeing 767, Airbus 360, etc.) and more frequency.

As far as I can tell, to welcome the arrival of Airbus A380, airport facility/equipment upgrade is limited and spotty. Compared to the activities generated by Jumbo Jets, it certainly is a small scale operation.

What is your comments?