A380 visits Hokkaido

[bikkuri bahn]

For any airliner fans on this forum, yesterday an A380 demonstrator visited my "local" international airport, Shin Chitose.  It came to test facilities at the new international terminal, as well as a sales demonstrator to Japanese airlines, as the Haneda AP-Shin Chitose AP route is the busiest air corridor in the world.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_busiest_passenger_air_routes

[KenS]

With a proposed Tokyo-Sapporo runtime of 3:57 the Hokkaido Shinkansen is a bit outside the usually-quoted "three hour" window to take a significant share of air passenger travel. And according to wikipedia the 2015 opening doesn't include the Shin-Hakodate to Sapporo section, so initial travel times would be longer.

 

Still, it seems an odd time to market new airplanes to those airlines; they're likely to have a surplus in five years, unless the current fleet is getting old, as some of the current traffic is likely to shift over.

[bikkuri bahn]

For the air travel time between CTS and HND you have to take into account the travel time between Sapporo and Chitose, which comes to 40 min to 1 hour, as well as check in, security, and waiting to board (though these are still relatively pleasant and speedy in Japan).  Not to mention the deplaning process and getting to the centre city at Haneda.  When you consider that you can board a Hayabusa at Sapporo Station and get off at Tokyo Sta, with transfer to multiple zairai lines, the Shinkansen looks competitive.  The determining factor, I believe, will be ticket price.

 

I doubt any Japanese airlines are interested in the A380- it's just too big.  JAL is restructuring and recently retired a bunch of 747's, and ANA is betting its future on the 787.

[Guest ___]

Let's just pray it has GE engines on-board.