Re: Bye bye Arctic
Concorde is hardly a relevant example. Concorde was conceived in the era when air travel was still an expensive luxury, but by the time it entered service, widebodies like the DC-10 and 747 had already turned flying into a mass-market proposition.
Fuel consumption would have made Concorde a niche-player for any airline, and the series of oil crises from the early 1970s onwards killed the chance of further orders by making that fuel much more expensive than it had been a decade before, when the project started. In service, you needed nearly three times as much fuel to bring a passenger in Concorde as in a 747. There are very, very few routes where passengers are willing to pay 3x the fare just to arrive a couple of hours faster. (The US aircraft industry's successful lobbying to prevent supersonic use of Concorde within the States was another downside, but it wasn't the only one)
The 350 and 787 are what the market needs; they're more efficient versions of their predecessors, with better passenger comfort, longer range and lower operating costs.
A380 is selling slowly, but it's no failed product. The new growth is in point-to-point links between second-tier airports, to create a mesh rather than hub/spoke, but at those primary airports, the high demand means planes like 747 and A380 are the best way to make a landing slot pay for itself.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
