Originally Posted by
Hartington
Would it be possible to have freight on the lower (passenger) deck and passengers on the upper?
As I've posted numerous times, the A380 as it currently exists does not pencil out to be a good freighter - MZFW is too low, limiting the max payload to ~85 tons, where as the 777F is over 100 tons with much lower operating costs, and if you need to haul something big, 747-8F can carry over 130 tons.
Some sort of combi setup
might be an option, but the regulations covering a combi have become
far more restrictive (see Helderberg as to why), so certifying a new combi aircraft would very difficult - especially for a retrofit.
All the existing combi aircraft were certified over 20 years ago, before the regulations were tightened.