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Post by That English Guy on Feb 23, 2005 8:50:58 GMT -6
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Post by Tex on Feb 23, 2005 9:11:29 GMT -6
Certainly it was a good idea for Bush to go to Europe and try to mend fences. The policy differences remain. France's support for ending the EU ban on selling weapons to China speaks much louder than the smiles and photo ops. Skip the crap about working for world peace when you sell weapons to whoever has the Euros.
Nothing makes folks patch up their differences like a common enemy. The currency/budget/proposed constitution of the EU are a hard sell in many quarters of Europe and IMHO, the European politicians use the US (and GW Bush in particular) as a handy bogeyman and common enemy to rally around.
I do think that the Bush administration has rightly toned down its criticism of Europe. Even though the policy differences are huge and there is much personal flak coming from Europe (GW as cowboy, idiot, etc.), it is not constructive to compound policy differences with personal slights.
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Post by DT on Feb 23, 2005 9:48:44 GMT -6
How true that is and they should all have a commom interest in the war on terrorism. Sooooooooo, the *Wanted Dead or Alive* posters didn't tickle your fancy 
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Post by Merlot Joe on Feb 23, 2005 10:30:27 GMT -6
With some work it can be done. However IMHO France and Germany are going to be tough to bring around.
They seem to think that they can continue to call the shoots when ever they want. Just like on the China issue. All that they are looking out for is a way to line their pockets with more money, and they have no morals of how or where it will come from.
Joe.
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Post by That English Guy on Feb 23, 2005 11:03:28 GMT -6
They seem to think that they can continue to call the shoots when ever they want. France and Germany feel much the same way about George Bush, that's what caused the big division in the first place. IMHO both parties have been at fault, Chirac and Schröeder have done their best to antagonise the US, whilst the rhetoric coming from Washington has done little to placate them, until now. Joe, are you aware that Tony Blair fully supports the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China? Simon |
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Post by DT on Feb 23, 2005 12:10:32 GMT -6
Dunno if Joe did? But, I didn't. And here I thought of Blair as a Bush side-kick. So much for my thinking  |
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 23, 2005 12:15:03 GMT -6
And man is he going out of his way to be nice... I am starting to call this his "Mr Rodgers Tour" the only thing he hasnt done is put on the cardigan and sing "would you be mine, could you be mine, wont you be my neighbor".
Gordon
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Post by Merlot Joe on Feb 23, 2005 12:53:30 GMT -6
Joe, are you aware that Tony Blair fully supports the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China? Simon No I did not. It was not in the article in the paper I read this morning. They just mentioned France and Germany. As a matter of fact, they only mentioned France and Germany last night on Hardball on the China issue. No mention of Blair at all. Joe. |
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Post by That English Guy on Feb 23, 2005 13:44:49 GMT -6
I was very surprised when I heard it. My only guess is that he is keen to regain the ground he has lost over the past couple of years, because of his support of W, to make Britain a leading player in the EU.
Simon
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Post by Tex on Feb 23, 2005 17:53:26 GMT -6
I'm usually very hesitant to criticize the British, but selling arms to the Chinese is a bad idea, making a few bucks today but buying trouble tomorrow. Europe is almost guaranteeing a nuclear Japan, and likely South Korea and Taiwan. What a little powder keg we will have in the East.
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Post by Merlot Joe on Feb 23, 2005 18:07:25 GMT -6
Europe is almost guaranteeing a nuclear Japan, and likely South Korea and Taiwan. What a little powder keg we will have in the East. Yeah, one spark and boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Joe. |
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Post by That English Guy on Feb 23, 2005 18:57:51 GMT -6
Knowing how Phony Tony operates I'm sure there is more to this than initially meets the eye. He's still reingratiating himself with Chirac and Schröeder after siding with Bush over Iraq, and of course he won't want to risk falling out with the US over this. With Blair and Europe looking for concessions over global warming, and the dispute with Boeing about European governments backing the new Airbus A380, maybe we'll see a few twists and turns in this story over then next few months.
Simon
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Post by Chicago Jake on Feb 23, 2005 19:40:13 GMT -6
Rebuild bridges with Ketchup!! www.wketchup.com/. Pour it on your Burgers and your Freedom Fries!! Wash it all down with good California Merlot!!  .....Jake |
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Post by Tex on Feb 23, 2005 21:00:18 GMT -6
[quote author=samNsi link=board=Politics&thread=1109170258&start=11#0 date=1109206671...dispute with Boeing about European governments backing the new Airbus A380.
Simon[/quote]
...speaking of which, I read a few weeks ago that the EU told little (and still suffering from the tsunami) Thailand basically that if they wanted to continue to sell their fish in the EU that Thai Air would have to buy 6 of the new planes. If that kind of hardball is acceptable, perhaps the US should refuse to appropriate FAA funds (the only way airport construction gets done in the US) to widen the runway aprons and taxiways to accomodate the new plane. If the plane wouldn't fit in US airports, that would certainly be a drawback to potential buyers.
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Post by Bluejay on Feb 23, 2005 21:55:29 GMT -6
It would also be a drag on the American flying public. Not allowing access to the big plane=higher ticket prices.
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Post by Bluejay on Feb 23, 2005 22:07:42 GMT -6
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Post by Tex on Feb 23, 2005 22:24:14 GMT -6
It would also be a drag on the American flying public. Not allowing access to the big plane=higher ticket prices. Not necessarily, the mid size planes are flying around with empty seats. The jumbo plane only works if it is close to full. Atlanta (second busiest airport in the world) has already said that they don't have the market for it and don't intend to spend the many millions needed to alter the airport to accomodate it. I can see the A380 making sense on very high volume long hauls but little else. This does not desribe most flights. One of the biggest complaints from the airports is that the 380 can't be efficiently loaded through one door, so the jetways will have to be radically altered for it. Airbus committed to the design during a period of fairly low fuel costs. At today's fuel prices, the A-380 has to be close to full to compete. Boeing went a completely different direction. The 787 will be a mid-size super fuel efficient plane with a long range. |
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Post by Chicago Jake on Feb 23, 2005 23:54:02 GMT -6
I'm with Tex on this one. When I read about the A380, all I could think was, WTF? In today's marketing environment, profits are made by "mass customization" and "narrow-casting"... in other words, you need lots of small, nimble products to offer to your customers, not huge, one-size-fits-all solutions. The fact that it will require major alterations to the airports is just another nail in the coffin of that strategy.
In my field of manufacturing, this means small batch sizes of products to fill in the small niches, albeit LOTS of those niches are needed. In the airline industry, it means lots of small and mid-size vehicles to provide flexible routing between any two cities that your costumers might desire.
The A380 flies (heh heh) in the face of this trend, and asks the airlines to commit to FEWER, and HIGHER VOLUME routes; exactly what the public will NOT respond to in today's market.
The Boeing 7E7 (E for "efficient") is the appropriate response to the flexible needs of the current market place. I wish them luck and applaud their foresight....Jake
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 24, 2005 6:51:41 GMT -6
The A380 is a dinosaur that wont be much more than an oddity. It would be cool to fly in one once, to catch the amenities (like the Concorde), but I cant think of the herd of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds filing into one of those things, as being an enjoyable experience, much less waiting for the lines at security (outbound), customs/immigration, or baggage pick up (after landing), involved with this behemoth.
One crash, with 700 or 800 casulties, or one panic landing with hundreds coming out of the second level will probably do it in.
G
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 24, 2005 6:57:52 GMT -6
Rebuild bridges with Ketchup!! www.wketchup.com/. Pour it on your Burgers and your Freedom Fries!! Wash it all down with good California Merlot!! .....Jake Better yet Jake, offer it to your new French friends to put on some of their high quizzine dinners... really liven up that French steak, not to mention the dinner conversation. I love the second page (about W Ketchup)... Somehow Reagan's picture next to his favorite vegetable from Americas lunchrooms is just too funny. Joe... Does Ketchup go with Merlot??? I always figured it for a good Boones Farm Blueberry Punch.  Speaking of which... I heard a commentator say that "there was nothing between the French and American governments that couldnt be solved by Bush and Chirac sitting down for an evening and sharing a bottle of wine together... therein lies the problem"... make that a water, but only the French have a word for rapprochement. ;D G |
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Post by Harrybutt on Feb 24, 2005 7:05:14 GMT -6
The 8 - 10 flights I was on last year were all full as ticks...and I tried for the least popular times to fly....explanation was the airlines had reduced the number of flights (as well as crew) and thus, we should expect most every flight to be full up inthe future.
BTW, it is, indeed ironic, Bornagain, as it was Reagan who stated that ketchup is a vegetable for nutrition purposes in public schools. So that as long as they served a "serving" of ketchup, they only had to fix a meat and another vegetable. Butt he was in his right mind when he said that ... like the one about a tree polluting the air more than a car..... ;D
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 24, 2005 7:16:56 GMT -6
BTW, it is, indeed ironic, Bornagain, as it was Reagan who stated that ketchup is a vegetable for nutrition purposes in public schools. So that as long as they served a "serving" of ketchup, they only had to fix a meat and another vegetable. Butt he was in his right mind when he said that ... like the one about a tree poluting the air more than a car..... ;D Exactly my point, not to mention that the tomatoe is a fruit not a veggy (a fine point for us anal types, on the order of the new century starting in 2001 not 2000). G |
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Post by Tex on Feb 24, 2005 7:59:57 GMT -6
Re: Airbus 380 -
IMHO, Whether it makes it will depend on future trends in aviation routes. It could do well for the long leg segment of the old spoke and hub system and for the very high volume routes of the newer point to point system. Boeing and Airbus are betting on different scenarios. Both are on the same page in predicting large increases in air travel.
Airbus sees it this way: Air traffic congestion limits the number of flights that can land at the hubs, so larger planes are necessary to handle the passenger increase without pushing air traffic past the limit.
Boeing sees it this way: The big increase in passenger volume will make possible bypassing some of the hubs that have been bottlenecks. Market demand from passengers and airlines is for fewer connections and more direct flights. Example: Rather than feeding from Phoenix and Seattle into LAX, then connecting to a jumbo for the leg to Taipei, you would have two medium sized planes flying direct from Seattle to Taipei and Phoenix to Taipei. Super efficient medium size planes make this work.
Both planes represent marked increases in efficiency for the niche they fill. Boeing has raised hell that they are competing with the EU rather than just another competitor due to the big public money going into Airbus. For those that believe that the US government would not let the commercial passenger division of Boeing go down, I would point to Lockheed.
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Post by Tex on Feb 24, 2005 8:10:45 GMT -6
...it looks more like Thailand is in fact playing hardball with the EU... bluejay Thailand pushing the EU around? Hello. One big difference between Boeing and Airbus (besides the huge EU subsidies) is that Boeing doesn't have the power to dictate tariffs in order to sell its planes. |
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Post by That English Guy on Feb 24, 2005 10:01:52 GMT -6
The Airbus is aimed at the intercontinental and long haul markets, not the shorter O'Hare to JFK domestic type flights within the USA. These markets are forecast to continue growing especially from the Asia - Pacific countries including China. We fly several times a year from London to Miami, Dallas and NY and on only one flight have we ever seen empty seats when flying trans-Atlantic, and that was on a flight out of JFK the day before Thanksgiving. It makes economic sense that if airlines can get more people around the world by scheduling less flights with more passengers on them then there is a market out there for the A380. This is proven by the 149 confirmed orders with a further 100 options already taken. IMHO Airbus have identified a niche and are filling it. They are also not putting all their eggs in one basket and are developing the A350-800 and A350-900 to compete with the 7E7 from Boeing who they have pushed into second place to become the world's number one civilian planemaker.
Simon
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Post by Bluejay on Feb 24, 2005 10:40:36 GMT -6
I'm with Simon on this one. Of course the A380 is targeted at a niche market. Indeed, all airplanes are targeted at different niches. The long-haul niche is simply expected to grow, that's all.
Over the years Boeing has introduced larger and larger versions of the 747. The A380 is just the next logical step up.
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Post by Exildo Wonsetler Briggs III on Feb 25, 2005 21:25:28 GMT -6
Over the years Boeing has introduced larger and larger versions of the 747. The A380 is just the next logical step up. *IF* market forces were today the same that brought the 747 to market, you might be right. But you are wrong. I spent 130,000 miles flying last year. Airlines that are going bankrupt were FULL UP! GO FIGURE! Southwest, OTOH, the only airline to turn a profit consistently after 9/11, works in the "point to point" method of flying, uses *only* 737 planes (so mechanical work is simplified) and somehow keeps making money. France and the 380 are where we were 25 years ago. The 380 will go bust, IMHO. While a nice plane, the airlines flying it won't provide the service flyin' folks are looking for. SImply, getting from point A to point B. Southwest does that like no one else. ............Bob |
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Post by Tex on Feb 26, 2005 7:58:56 GMT -6
I remember when Southwest started and just flew between Dallas and Houston. They have come a long way.
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Post by Harrybutt on Feb 26, 2005 8:09:58 GMT -6
WOW!, the Bob and I agree.  There seems to be a myth about empty airplanes flying around... And yes, I just can't see that big ol jet having THAT many orders over time. There will be empty seats. What a gamble.....a couple of well placed terrorist incidents and the A380 will be mothballed. |
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Post by Tex on Feb 26, 2005 8:48:04 GMT -6
I would think that there is a market for the A380 in the long haul trunk lines (London-New York, LAX-Taipei, OHare-Frankfurt, etc.). If it is enough to make the 380 financially profitable, who knows.
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.....Jake
