The world in 2029

The following article originally appeared in TravelWeekly Australia

If you want to know where demand for travel is going over the next two decades, ask Airbus and Boeing. Both manufacturers' forecasts place Australia in a fast growing part of the world, as Justin Wastnage found out recently

In tough times, you like to be able to see a way out. There is now a wealth of economic data showing that Australia has dodged the global slump bullet, but a little less data when it comes specifically to travel. But Airbus and Boeing, manufacturers of the bulk of the world's aircraft, have teams of econometrics experts crunching the numbers on air transport trends. And because planes fly for at least 20 years, their forecasts are pretty far reaching.
They are also remarkably reliable. Boeing has been surveying since 1961 and Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes says the almost 50 years of data provide some very clear examples of how air travel always digs itself out of recession. The charts also provide some long-term growth trends that are hard to mistake. His Airbus counterpart, John Leahy, the airframer's chief operating officer for customers, concurs, saying that growth in air transport always tracks growth in the real economy, but grows twice as quickly. Average growth in air travel has been 5.2% per year in the past 30 years, despite the economy growing by only 3% on average over the same period. Passenger ticket sales have doubled every 15 years, Airbus data shows, says Leahy.
When the economy will pick up is the big question on everyone's lips. Leahy neatly sums up the analysis by saying that while "history never repeats itself, history does tend to rhyme." Airbus sees a recovery in air transport by the middle of next year, with 6% to 10% growth again by 2011. Boeing, meanwhile says that next year will see a global economic recovery, but that it will take another year for airlines to become profitable and thus start buying aircraft again.
This augers well for anyone who sells travel for the next 20 years, both manufacturers agree. Boeing suggests demand for airline tickets will increase by 4.1% every year until 2029. However, both forecasts show flights to and from Australia growing at a much quicker rate than other parts of the world. Tinseth points to figures showing that only New Zealanders, Singaporeans and Hong Kongers take more airline trips than Aussies every year.
Currently around a third of the aircraft sold in the world (and thus airline tickets) are from the US or Canada. Europe has a quarter of the world's air traffic, while Asia provides another quarter. This ratio will be flipped on its head over the next 20 years, says Leahy. Asia will be the big growth area, with China and India <[stk -1]>unsurprisingly supplying the most growth. This will be good for Australia, he says, because we enjoy cultural links with both countries. India has Commonwealth links and enjoys beating us at cricket, while China sends so many students here, that word has gotten back about what a great place Australia is, he reckons.
The flights they arrive on will have seats heading in the opposite direction; pushing total capacity out of Australia up, adds Laurent Rouard, Airbus senior vice president for market and product strategy.
Regarding the doubling of flights, Boeing pointed to the US since Delta Air Lines and V Australia started competing on the Los Angeles route as proof of the wisdom of its earlier forecasts. Looking forward, Rouard suggests the Middle East will be the single largest growth area over the next decade, since the location is perfect for efficient hubbing, a prediction borne out by carriers such as Qatar Airways starting services in December. The number of seats available to the Gulf region will grow 8.2% on average each year. Other growth areas agents should expect in the next 10 years are Latin America, set to grow 7%, China 7% and Africa 5.9% (see graphic, right).
<[stk -1]>But while they agree on the general figures, Airbus and Boeing differ when it comes to where they see this growth occurring. Airbus points to the growth of "megacities" as proof of the need for more of its double-decker A380 superjumbos. Leahy says that today 92% of all traffic originates or ends in one of 37 cities (of which Sydney is the sole Australian representative). Los Angeles, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Beijing are all members of this club, membership of which is defined by having 10,000 passengers or more departing daily. In twenty years 82 cities will fall into this camp, so thinking anything but a super large aircraft is going to be used is "absurd" as Leahy puts it. "Our competitor seems to think people will be flying in lots of little aircraft, but look at environmental concerns, look at congested airports and look at the sheer logistics of moving so many people," he says. Airbus predicts 1300 passenger versions of the A380 or Boeing's new jumbojet, the 747-8 Intercontinental will be needed over the next 20 years, while Boeing thinks the figure will be closer to 600.
Boeing, meanwhile, is pinning its hopes on people wanting to avoid switching planes wherever they can. So Queenslanders will opt for more direct flights from Brisbane and Cairns than having to fly through Sydney as more services come online. Tinseth says that over the years growth in air travel has always led to more routes opening up, not fewer. "As people get fed up with airports, they will want to avoid hubs," he says. Boeing estimates that airlines will buy 6700 aircraft with between 200 and 400 seats over the next 20 years, while Airbus puts the figure at 4100. Significantly, Boeing has the 777 and the delayed 787 Dreamliner in this category.
Drill down to our region and the picture becomes more complex. For Boeing, Australia is the twelfth biggest market in the world. There are currently 400 aircraft based here, which will more than double to 850 by 2029, of which 670 will be new aircraft, Tinseth says. Boeing expects our gross domestic product to rise by 2.9% on average over the next 20 years, but airline traffic to rise by 5.1%. Of this, traffic to Asia will be the fastest growing destination.
Airbus only has a 26% share here, but Leahy says he was meeting Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce while in Sydney to exploit the national carrier's annoyance at 787 delays. But Airbus signed a new order for its smaller A320 aircraft with Air New Zealand this month, skewing its favouritism towards our Trans Tasman cousins. Together with New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Airbus estimates carriers in Australia will need a further 630 aircraft over the next 20 years. Passenger growth will average 5% over the period, higher than the global average of 4.7%, Leahy says. The region's fleet will more than double from 338 today to 698 by 2029, with 271 replacement aircraft and 360 additional aircraft coming in.
Significantly, Airbus sees a need for 60 very large aircraft such as the A380 or 747, against Boeing's prediction of just five. Rouard is adamant that Australia's proximity to so many of the emerging megacities will make anything less than this figure too small.
So while the big boys bicker about just how we will fly in years to come, at least their message is consistent: there will be richer pickings for many years to come.

Seat review: Emirates A380

The following article originally appeared in TravelWeekly Australia

Justin Wastnage travelled on the Emirates A380 from Sydney to Dubai in business class. Here's how he rated it.

LOUNGE: Attempting to leave Sydney during the Great Dust Storm of 09, my flight was always going to be delayed. Whiling away two hours in the Emirates lounge was a pretty painless way of doing so. The food is the stand-out, featuring a hot buffet with comfort food like shepherd's pie alongside Moroccan tajine and poached salmon. There is great Middle Eastern fare to try as well. The décor of gold trims on the wooden partitions may be a little gaudy to many, but all the usual lounge ingredients are there. 8/10

SEAT: The vast real estate available to airlines flying the A380 is used in different ways. Emirates has gone for a pod-like module that has a myriad of compartments and a minibar for each passenger. Couples have two conjoined seats, while singles have window pods. Considering the aircraft only entered into service earlier this year, some of the plastics and materials looks a little scuffed already and the seat was impossible to escape from. The interlocking table also makes it impossible to escape during the lengthy meal service. Once converted into a lie-flat bed and covered with a mattress, the bed is one of the most comfortable I have slept in. As with the lounge, the brass and pastel styling might be more suited to Middle Eastern tastes. 8/10

SERVICE: The multinational cabin crew all seemed to gel together and at times you felt like you were part of their gang as they laughed and joked. Service was very friendly and efficient without being fawning or obsequious. However, the drinks service for all meals was extremely slow; meaning a main meal with no wine and breakfast without coffee. 7/10

EXTRAS:The amenities kit features Bulgari toiletries plus the men's kit has none other than a Taylor's of Old Bond Street razor, raising the bar for others who give away plastic disposables. The biggest extra on the Emirates A380 is the huge bar. Pioneered by Virgin Atlantic, the in-flight bar is now perfected. Rather than standing around or perching on bar stools, the Emirates bar provides two long couches ideal for socialising. 9/10

FOOD:The great start made in the lounge is built upon in the air. Braised beef is a staple of airline cuisine, but the Emirates cut was excellent quality. The dessert was light and there was a good choice of healthier meals too. Once again, the Arabic cuisine such as the hummus and olives with flat bread was excellent. 8/10

ENTERTAINMENT: From the wide screen television to the noise cancelling headphones, Emirates shows its class from the moment you arrive. Add in a wireless remote control tablet and over 600 television channels and you've got one of the best systems going. For me the standout was the quality of the Bose headphones which amplified subtleties in albums I have already listened to hundreds of times. Sadly my wifi remote control malfunctioned and the USB stick did not support iPod format content, but I did manage to view my photos as a slideshow. 9/10

OVERALL RATING: 81%
The seat is big and impressive, the entertainment fantastic and the bar a stand-out. Small problems in service and technology hamper the offering, but the Emirates A380 is still one of the best business classes flying.

Flight club

Originally published in the New Scientist

I am sitting inside the cabin for
the new longhaul 787 aircraft
from manufacturer Boeing and
it feels huge.
Boeing is calling this aircraft the
Dreamliner and a lot of the thought has
gone into passenger comfort as well as
the aerodynamics. A good example is the
inclusion of thousands of tiny blue lightemitting
diodes which fool the eye into
thinking the 787 cabin is larger.
“Eyes can focus very easily on cold
white light, but the frequency of blue
we use makes it very hard to focus on,
enhancing the sense of space,” says Ken
Price, who heads up the revenue team
of the 787 project, working with airline
customers.
The galley of the Dreamliner is where
this sense of space is most impressive;
the entryway is an atrium arch, giving the
sense of a hallway in a stately home. There
are other tricks, too. The aircraft is the first
commercial airliner to be built of advanced
composites, which allow for moister air at a
higher, more natural pressure than in metal
aircraft as the fuselage has no rusting rivets
to worry about.
Boeing is obviously banking on passengers
wanting to find out more about this new
technology, as it has transformed the
traditional tour of its facility north of Seattle
into a Future of Flight museum packed with
concept aircraft from blended wing bodies
to hypersonic aircraft capable of reaching
Sydney from London in two hours.
The airframer’s plant is a fascinating
place too. I met my wife on a tour, having
shoe horned ourselves into the cramped
crew sleeping quarters that are hidden
inside the roof of a 777. The efficiency of
the facility’s work flow processes are as
much a marvel as its sheer size.
Located at the edge of the Puget Sound that
separates the US from Canada’s Vancouver
Island, the Boeing factory is also close to an
area of outstanding natural beauty.
For those who like to combine the
traditional holiday habits of good food and
wine with a little aeronautic sightseeing,
the factory of Boeing’s archrival Airbus is
just as attractive. Its A380 visitor centre,
dedicated to the two-storey flying castle, is
in the southwestern French city of Toulouse.
There are plenty of quirks about the
beautiful city, known to Frenchmen as the
home of rugby and fine food. That the
Airbus facility is here at all, in the middle of
the mountainous Midi-Pyrénées region, is
a twist of historical fate: it is the site where
French aviation pioneer Pierre-Georges
Latécoère founded his factory at the end
of the First World War, far from both the
German border and sea access.
Today, the British built wings and
German-built fuselages have to wind their
way through medieval towns on transporters
from the nearest port in Bordeaux to the
Toulouse suburb of Blagnac.
The site was most famous as the
headquarters of the Franco-British
supersonic aeroplane Concorde, which first
took flight from Blagnac in 1969.
All of this history is presented in a
surprisingly cheap Airbus facility tour,
which Nicole Pradines from the tourism
board of Midi-Pyrénées recommends
combining with a visit to the space
adventure park Cité de l’Espace.
Aside from space paraphernalia from the
past half-century, its Terradome presents
the history of space from the Big-Bang
to the creation of the solar system, while
its hypothetical human settlement on the
moon is entitled, confusingly, Astralia.
Both the third and fourth largest aircraft
manufacturers, Bombardier of Canada
and Embraer of Brazil, also allow tours
of their facilities, although Montreal is far
easier to reach than the jungle city of São
José dos Campos.

FLIGHT TIMES
• The Airbus facility in Toulouse,
France, is home to the world’s fastest
commercial plane, the Concorde, and
the largest, the A380. Manatour Taxiway
offers a combined tour of the A380
assembly line and the Concorde for
EUR22 (AU$41): http://pagespersoorange.
fr/manatour-taxiway.fr/gb/
airbus.htm
• The Future of Flight Aviation
Centre and Boeing Tour are located in
Mukilteo, Washington, approximately
30 miles north of Seattle. The centre
features hands-on exhibits, videos,
graphics and interactive stations to
involve and appeal to the whole family.
For example, you can digitally design
and test your own jet or ride a simulator
of the multi-passenger XJ5 supersonic
jet. General admission costs US$15
(AU$22). Further details are available at
www.futureofflight.org