He is stubborn. Tim Clark never tires of promoting a new version of the Airbus A380. The thesis of the President of Emirates is that the number of passengers worldwide will grow rapidly at rates of 4 to 6 percent annually, while the number of slots at the airports remains limited. Therefore, high-capacity aircraft are needed.
The Emirates President predicts that the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 will not be sufficient. And the upcoming Boeing 777-9 is not big enough for Emirates either. “It offers 364 seats in our configuration versus 484 in the A380 with our new Premium Economy,” Clark said in August. “Before there were even 519.”
Therefore he would like to see a more efficient new edition of the A380. “Imagine a composite wing and a fuselage that’s mostly composite,” Clark said. “Imagine engines that offer an improvement of 20 to 25 percent compared to today,” said the Emirates President last month.
Now he has mentioned another detail that he envisions for the new version of the A380 or the development of a similarly sized aircraft. “I don’t want windows,” Clark said at an event near Washington, D.C., according to Flight Global magazine. “I can create individual windows with a camera.” The big advantage from his point of view: “The weight that is built into the aircraft structure through the windows is eliminated.”
The idea itself is not new. As early as 2014 there were concepts for windowless jets with ultra-light screens on the cabin walls. The technology has meanwhile advanced. It’s possible to turn sections of a wall into large screens that either show what’s outside or something else.
However, it is also conceivable to create virtual windows in the current window shape. Emirates itself presented a concept for its First Class back in 2017, in which the window frames still existed, but contained screens.
Clark now feels that Airbus is taking it more seriously when it comes to promoting a new version of the A380. It’s about “aircraft in 2040,” he said now.
The Emirates President estimates the costs for such a program at 15 to 20 billion dollars, as he said in Berlin in July when asked by aeroTELEGRAPH.
This article was written by Timo Nowack
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The original of this article “Emirates President wants new Airbus A380 without windows” comes from aeroTelegraph.
