[mkh]

I admit I know virtually nothing about the aircraft industry, but I always wonder why Airbus doesn't do the initially planned cargo version of the A380. The only reason I can imagine is that there aren't enough customers for the cargo version, but why is this so? Isn't air cargo growing? Would an cargo A380 be too expensive? Some comments suggest the A380 has bad fuel efficiency per passenger mile, but some others suggest this is because airlines put less passenger seats in the plane than possible. Surely this can't be a problem for freight planes? What is it?

[jakub_g]

Apparently it's about the weight/space ratio which makes is not economical to fly cargo with A380:

"An A380-F would be too fat to fly at a profit: The plane would hit the maximum payload (a constraint of weight) before its maximum cubic space (a constraint of volume). Its design can’t support the maximum payload required to generate a profit.

(...)

The A380-F would be able to carry 60% more volume than the 747, but only 28% more weight. It wouldn’t be fully loaded at typical levels of air cargo density, or at least nothing close to what can be supported by the thrust capacity of the 747."

https://www.flexport.com/blog/airbus-a380-no-cargo-equivalen...

[rogerbinns]

The dedicated cargo freighter market has been in decline for quite a while, but the volume of cargo has been increasing. The reason is cargo goes in the holds of passenger aircraft. This is nice extra money for the airline: the plane was going to go anyway, the crew is paid for, the fuel difference is minimal etc.

Remember that planes are already double decker (triple for A380). They look like this: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4c732e2865f73d86b72c5a...

The bottom deck has fuel tanks, passenger bags, and space for cargo. The A380 (passenger version) is problematic for cargo because there are two passenger decks which means up to twice the lower deck taken up with baggage leaving less for the cargo.