Karamjit Kaur

Senior Aviation Correspondent

When it comes to planes, big is clearly not better.

On Sept 30, 1968, the world got its first glimpse of the Boeing 747, as the jumbo jet with its distinctive hump rolled out of a factory in Everett, Washington.

It was dubbed Queen of the Skies, a title it eventually gave up almost four decades later to the Airbus 380 – an even bigger flying machine designed to carry as many as 555 passengers in a three-class configuration or 853 passengers in a single-class economy configuration.

On Oct 25, 2007, Singapore Airlines (SIA) became the first to fly the A-380 commercially – from Singapore to Sydney.

Twelve years later, the B-747 and A-380, built to transport large numbers of air travellers across major airports, have become irrelevant to passenger airlines.

Orders have stagnated, while those still flying are slowly but surely being phased out.

The skies now belong to smaller, more efficient flying machines that come with two instead of four engines that power the bigger birds.

And while big airports that can accommodate the giant jets continue to grow, travellers are increasingly opting for point-to-point services instead of having to fly through major hubs. This fuels the need for smaller aircraft.

Is this the end of the runway for jumbo jets?

A GOOD RUN FOR THE B-747

When American chief engineer Joe Sutter and his team at Boeing sat down in the 1960s to design the B-747, they set out to build an aircraft that could be used both as a passenger carrier and a cargo plane.

Convinced that the future of passenger flights belonged to supersonic aircraft, the team was prepared that the B-747 could one day be good only for cargo services.

With this in mind, the plane was designed with a flip-up nose, hinged at the top to make it easy to load and unload even large cargo items quickly.

The cockpit got in the way so designers added the iconic hump to house the pilot cabin.

From its first commercial flight in 1970, the B-747 went on to become a big hit with more than 1,500 jets built to date.

“It’s all about timing”, said aviation analyst Shukor Yusof from Endau Analytics.

“The B-747 came at a time when intercontinental long-haul travel was about to take off... There was no competition when it was launched and jet fuel was relatively inexpensive, which made the four-engined aircraft a viable proposition for airlines.”

Half a century later, though, the B-747 is starting to disappear from the skies as SIA, Qantas, British Airways, Lufthansa and other major carriers phase them out in favour of newer twin-engined and more efficient planes like the A-350 and B-777s.

SIA operated its last B-747 flight in 2012, Qantas says it will phase out its remaining 747s by 2020 and British Airways will do the same by 2024.

Last year, Boeing received just 18 orders for its jumbo jet; the bulk from logistics giant UPS, which bought 14 freighters.

A-380 NEVER REALLYHAD A FIGHTING CHANCENotwithstanding its glorious entry into commercial service in SIA colours, the A-380 could not have

made its debut at a worse time.Professor Guido Gianasso,

academic director of the Iata-Nanyang Advanced Management Programme at Nanyang Technological University’s Nanyang Business School, said: “Its introduction into service coincided with the global financial crisis and the hardest times in the history of commercial aviation.”

Several technical issues also emerged over the years, from problems with its Rolls-Royce engines to cracks in wing fittings.

Last year alone, close to 80 A-380 international flights were cancelled due to technical problems, Prof Gianasso pointed out.

High fuel prices in the last decade, which coincided with increasing competition among global carriers for market share and profits, also worked against the viability of the four-engined giant.

Some analysts even say that Airbus got it wrong, right from the start.

“The commercial assumptions behind the launch of the A-380 have proved wrong,” said Prof Gianasso.

Superjumbos rely on transporting large numbers of passengers between major hub airports like Changi, Dubai and Heathrow, from where they would connect to smaller airports.

Unfortunately for Airbus, travellers increasingly prefer to fly direct to their destinations, which typically requires smaller aircraft.

In addition, passengers – particularly in first and business class – also expect a spread of departure times to suit their needs.

“The market has given its verdict,” said Prof Gianasso, noting that A-380 sales have stagnated.

Airbus said on its website that as at Jan 31, it had received 313 orders for the aircraft, with 234 planes delivered – leaving a backlog of about 80 A-380s.

That number has since dropped after Qantas announced last week that it had cancelled an outstanding

order for eight A-380s.A further slide seems imminent,

with talk that Emirates – which still has more than 50 A-380s on order – is looking to convert some of that to the smaller and more efficient A-350.

It is not good news for Airbus, given that the Dubai-based carrier, the biggest A-380 operator with about 110 of the giants, is possibly the only airline customer keeping the A-380 programme alive.

Airbus, which has cut its production rate for the A-380 to just eight aircraft per year from this year onwards, seems determined to keep the factory going for the next few years at least.

Perhaps it is stubbornly holding out for a miracle, a renewed interest in the giant jet.

Sadly, there seems to be little, if any, hope that the plane-maker, which spent about US$25 billion (S$34 billion) to develop the aircraft, will ever come close to recouping the amount.

With just one real customer in Emirates, it is unviable for the A-380 programme to continue for much longer.

In 2007, Airbus made history when president and chief executive officer Tom Enders officially handed over the first A-380 – the biggest passenger plane ever to be built – to launch customer SIA.

The grand event attended by more than 500 guests was held at Airbus’ delivery centre in Toulouse, France.

In April this year, Mr Enders will retire, paving the way for Airbus (commercial aircraft) president Guillaume Faury to take over.

Pulling the plug on the production of the much-loved but economically unviable A-380 programme would be a good way to go.

The good news for travellers is that the A-380s and B-747s already flying will continue to soar through the skies for many years to come.

karam@sph.com.sg

Elizabeth H. Blackburn

Over the past century, industrialised nations around the world have built robust government-funded national research enterprises, none more formidable than the United States’ National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Each of these organisations – including Japan’s Riken, Inserm in France, Britain’s Medical Research Council and the recently formed European Research Council – has advanced science by infusing the universal human impulse for discovery with national or regional pride.

Yet Pythagoras’ theorem does not apply to triangles drawn solely in Greece, nor does Mendeleev’s periodic table describe chemical elements found only in Russia, a point made by the great Russian playwright and physician Anton Chekhov with characteristic succinctness in the Notebook: “There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.”

Despite the unarguable success of the nationally focused model of science that has dominated the past hundred years, the truly vexing problems now facing humanity – such as environmental degradation, the global climate crisis and its effects on health, emerging infectious diseases and pandemics, and the need for alternative energy sources – call for building something new: a global framework to support fundamental scientific research that cleaves more closely to Chekhov’s ideal.

This week in Washington, scientists from around the world will exchange ideas at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science during 13 sessions held under the banner of “Cultivating Borderless Research”, reflecting a mounting interest among scientists in transcending national and regional barriers.

Fortunately, an inspiring model of international commitment for the common benefit already exists in the Paris Agreement for climate change mitigation. The 2015 agreement, which recognises global climate change as one of the most daunting challenges faced by humankind, has the signatures of 194 nations plus the European Union, and lays out commitments to support the collective actions needed for long-term global benefit.

Though the Paris Agreement has been subject to criticism that it is based on aspirations rather than mandates, it is nonetheless an unprecedented achievement in global cooperation towards a shared and urgent goal and a powerful example of what humanity can achieve through inclusive, careful negotiations conducted in good faith.

By implementing the equivalent of a Paris Agreement for long-term, cooperative, international support of scientific research – to complement the nation-based organisations that have served us so well – we can better embrace far-sighted, strategic scientific planning.

Arming the world with collectively acquired new scientific knowledge would allow us to anticipate crises that ultimately affect us all, freeing us from the reactive stances we so frequently must adopt in response to unexpected challenges.

A global model would also provide the means to build a sustainable source of funding and freely shared scientific tools. When fiscal resources for science are bound up in national politics, year-to-year funding proposals can be unpredictable and even capricious.

The Paris Agreement crucially includes robust funding to achieve its objectives, via a Green Climate Fund that has so far attracted more than US$10 billion (S$13.6 billion) in pledges.

Notably, these pledges have come not just from affluent, highly industrialised countries but also from a diverse range of nations, including Mexico, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The current concentration of scientific activity in a small number of rich nations excludes the perspectives and talents of millions who stand ready to contribute to science.

By actively sharing technology and data through a global framework and by building on current momentum to open the scientific publishing process to all, we can greatly accelerate the pace of discovery and increase the diversity and richness of the research we pursue.

One might wonder why such global issues should be of concern to a scientist such as myself, since my decades of work on telomeres – tiny units of DNA that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes – have focused on biological events at a microscopic scale.

But telomeres are known to be involved in several diseases, and they may play an important role in extending the quality of the human lifespan. Many environmental factors, from pollutants to stressful living conditions (including a lack of access to healthy food or experiencing discrimination), affect telomeres. These factors are themselves profoundly determined by large social and economic forces that do not respect national boundaries.

So, as fulfilling as it has been to explore these intriguing sub-cellular structures at the lab bench, I have come to see that the view from my window is as important to my work as the view through my microscope.

I have presented preliminary ideas on a global science framework at several international forums and received an enthusiastic response.

It is my hope that young scientists and future scientists just coming of age can imagine, and eventually realise, a global pact for science – a science based on shared goals and resources, transparency and strategic long-range thinking. We would all stand to benefit. WASHINGTON POST

• Elizabeth H. Blackburn is a Nobel laureate andprofessor emerita at the University of California at San Francisco.

An Emirates A-380 in theskies above theFrench Rivieracity of Nice.Superjumbos relyon transportinglarge numbers ofpassengersbetween majorhub airports, buttravellersincreasinglyprefer to flydirect to theirdestinations,which typicallyrequires smaller,more efficientflying machines.PHOTO: AGENCEFRANCE-PRESSE

Is it the end of the runway for the giant jet?

Time for a Paris Agreement on scientific research

A24 OPINION| THE STRAITS TIMES | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2019 |