Airbus A330-800 NEO blank illustration templates

Well, here it is. The side view airliner template that nobody asked for! Don’t worry, I’m not going to feel bad at all if nobody downloads it – after all, it was super easy to create since it’s basically just an A330-900 NEO with a shortened fuselage (the same as the A330-200 actually). Chances are pretty good that I never would’ve created it in the first place if it wasn’t a simple variant of a template that I just created, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to crank it out and get it here posted to the blog and my online store.

Remember in my last post when I mentioned that I had a few suggestions for the Airbus Board of Directors? One of the most important would have to be the elimination of the -800 series of aircraft across the entire Airbus lineup. I mean, think about it. Every single -800 variant they have created so far has been a dud. We all know that the A380 started out as the A380-800, and sales of that aircraft never lived up to expectations. If it weren’t for Emirates and their conquest to be the world’s most obnoxiously over-the-top airline, it would’ve been a complete failure and likely not even existing at all anymore here in 2018.

Then there was the A350-800, which never even saw the light of day. The only airline that was somewhat interested in it was Hawaiian, but they backed out of thier initial order which left Airbus in a difficult position. With zero orders on the books and not a single other airline interested in making a deal, they were forced to cancel development and focus all of their efforts on the -900 and -1000 instead. Orders for both of those variants have been quite strong by the way.

Interestingly enough, I am seeing the same lack of support for the A350-800 here on the blog as well. It’s one of my least-download templates to date, and I haven’t even sold a single high-resolution version of it on my online store. Nobody (and I mean nobody) was interested in that bird.

And here we are with the A330-800 NEO in 2018. Total orders so far: zero, with none on the horizon. Compare that with the -900 variant, which has a solid backlog of 214 confirmed orders so far, and you can probably guess where things are headed with this. The only question now is when (not if) they will cancel the development of the -800 program altogether to focus on the larger variants only.

I’ve got to admit that I find this all very fascinating since it’s the smaller variants which typically have the better performance numbers (overall range, fuel efficiency, etc) and you would think that there would be a lot of airlines interested in that sort of thing. But I guess not. In the real world, it all comes down to cost per seat and it’s only the aircraft with more seats which are economically viable. I don’t really understand it, but that’s just the way things work.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is simple: Airbus, I think it’s time to give up on aircraft with the -800 extension. It’s proving to be the mark of bad luck for you, so from now on just start with the -900s and don’t even waste your time with anything else. Gosh I’m smart, and I can’t wait to check my email tomorrow morning and see an official email from Airbus offering me a position on their Board of Directors!

The ATR 42 is next.