The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ THE CLEARING - IN THEATERS JULY 2 - WATCH THE TRAILER NOW An official selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, THE CLEARING stars ROBERT REDFORD and HELEN MIRREN as Wayne and Eileen Hayes - a husband and wife living the American Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to build a successful business from the ground up. But there have been sacrifices along the way. When Wayne is kidnapped by an ordinary man, Arnold Mack (WILLEM DAFOE), and held for ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned inside out. Watch the trailer at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/theclearing/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Where Do You Park a 747 on Steroids? May 4, 2004 By JOE SHARKEY DOHA, Qatar, May 3 - Airbus, the big European airplane manufacturer, has a beautiful video with a splendid Dolby soundtrack to show off its new A380 superjumbo double-decker aircraft, which is due to start flying in 2006. In this sales video, well-dressed passengers stride up carpeted staircases and chat breezily in on-board cocktail lounges. Elsewhere on the vast plane, earnest business travelers pore over spreadsheets with colleagues while seated on lounge chairs and divans in what appear to be cozy conference rooms. In all, the chic in-flight gathering resembles one of those swell old nights at Hugh Hefner's house. But when the lights came up in the arena-like Majlis conference hall at the Doha Sheraton, a reality check occurred. "Is that a fair representation of what it's going to be like on that plane?" one delegate at the annual World Travel and Tourism Summit asked Adam Brown, vice president for market forecasts at Airbus. Seated beside Mr. Brown, Mary Gostelow, the president of Gostelow Travel, a luxury travel company, followed up with the question Airbus doesn't especially like to discuss. "Now supposing," Ms. Gostelow inquired in a British accent of the sort that is often described as plummy, "if we don't think of the interests of passengers, and if you think of the interest of the chairmen whose companies will purchase these planes, how many passengers could you actually pack in, supposing you took all that gracious space and made it all economy?" For years, as the A380 went into development, Airbus and its choristers in the news media have been relentlessly describing it as a 550-seat airplane that will offer tons of extra space for what Mr. Brown described as "walking-around areas." Last year, at the Airbus production line in Toulouse, France, an engineer told me that the plane, which has 50 percent more floor space than a Boeing 747, could hold - and would most likely be configured to do so by many airlines - well over 700 seats. The number of actual passengers carried will depend on the goals of each airline that buys the plane, he said. Some will opt for an allotment of space for luxuries as intense competition for premium cabin seats intensifies on long routes. For many other long-haul carriers, though, the pressure to pack in as many seats as possible will be compelling. The actual maximum A380 capacity, Mr. Brown conceded, is (drum-roll here) 880 passengers. That was a higher figure than most of us had previously heard. "With the Airbus A380, you're talking about 12 doors, 800-plus passengers," a man in the audience remarked. "What's being done in airport infrastructure to make sure that this aircraft actually has some possibility of landing, and it's not going to take people three days to get off the aircraft?" Mr. Brown described the many acknowledged virtues of the plane, and said that typically an airport will need to spend $100 million to accommodate the A380's with modified taxiways, gates, baggage-handling and customs and immigration facilities. How many airports are currently ready to handle the A380? "There are 13 airports that could accommodate the A380 today," he said. I don't mean to single out Airbus for criticism, especially since the A380 is a highly regarded engineering marvel with significant fuel efficiencies for its size. As air travel grows at a projected 5 percent annually, the A380 - Airbus has already booked well over 100 orders for it - is poised to provide brutal competition for Boeing's vintage workhorse 747's. Many travel and tourism conferences are largely social gatherings built around patty-cake panel discussions. As I meant the Airbus anecdote to illustrate, this one - which was attended by more than 1,000 representatives of the travel and tourism industry, as well as government leaders - was different. Over two days, it was filled with often spirited discussions about the future of travel and its myriad associated issues, including investment, regional growth, hotel brand expansion, open-skies disputes, visa waivers, terrorism, crisis responses to diseases, globalization, new markets, airplanes and airports and the news media's influence on travel perceptions. Future columns will examine some of those issues more closely. But let's wrap this one up with a tiny quiz. A week ago, I'd have failed both questions, giving low-ball estimates. How much is spent each year on personal travel and tourism? An estimated $2.5 trillion this year, according to data compiled by Oxford Economic Forecasting. How much is spent on business travel around the world? A projected $595 billion this year. As they peered ahead through the currently mostly sunny skies, travel experts generally described the threat of additional terrorist attacks on aviation as a long-term and perhaps permanent factor in air travel. Nevertheless, a remarkable worldwide recovery in air traffic is under way, with the expectation that overall 2004 passenger numbers will exceed pre-2001 levels. Passenger traffic on all world airlines rose 13.3 percent in March, and 9.6 percent for the first quarter, said Giovanni Bisignani, the director general of the International Air Transport Association. Even with the war in Iraq, business and leisure travel in the Middle East is surging. For the 2004 first quarter, traffic on Middle East carriers was up 30.7 percent. The biggest growth markets besides the Middle East? China and India, where growing middle classes are doing exactly what might be expected. They're taking more leisure and business trips. Along with the Middle East, "the emergence of China and India will change the face of tourism," Mr. Bisignani said. More on that later. On the Road appears each Tuesday. E-mail: Jsharkey@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/business/04bizroad.html?ex=1084677930&ei=1&en=250def7ca6649fa8 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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