Mirror Mirror in the Sky, Not A Single Plane Can Fly

The strikes at Heathrow, echoe a local strike here in Korea, at Asiana. Billions of dollars have already beenm lost as pilots and staff faced off against intractable management positions.

We will begin to see a crisis in airline industries everywhere as spiralling fuel costs are mitigated by cutting wages (or staff) and finally, carried over to the consumer, where demand will turn around and airlines around the world will be trimmed of all their fat. China and India have made large orders recently. While fuel efficient vehicles (on roads) are being designed today, in the form of hybrids, you cannot fly aeroplanes on fuel cells or electricity. Aeroplane graveyards will begin to form around the world's largest airports during the next decade, particularly once oil goes beyond $100 pb.

The world's largest public transport craft, the Airbus A380 is heavier than engineers promised, meaning it will not be as efficient on fuel as airlines like Virgin (well known for its frills) and Singapore Airlines had hoped for:

Airbus' 'big baby' is too big
A380 is still overweight by as much as 4 metric tons, hurting efficiency

By ANDREA ROTHMAN
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Airbus can't deliver the efficiencies it has promised in range or payload, given its struggle to reduce the A380's weight, said Randy Baseler, vice president of marketing for commercial airplanes at Chicago-based Boeing. Boeing never found customers for proposed versions of a larger 747 that would have carried as many as 516 passengers.

"If the plane's heavier, it consumes more fuel," Baseler said. "That drives up landing and navigation fees, and also maintenance costs, especially for wheels, tires and brakes."

Boeing is now marketing its first new aircraft in 14 years, the Everett-built 7E7 Dreamliner -- which it calls a fuel-efficient, midsize plane carrying as many as 289 passengers -- to fight Airbus in the commercial aircraft market. Boeing Chief Executive Harry Stonecipher predicts that operating margins will widen to 10 percent from 8 percent at the company's commercial division, thanks partly to the 7E7.