129 orders from some of the world's leading carriers and it hasn't flown yet. If the press is to be believed, that'll be 139 soon with Etihad and Thai, so it's a fair bet that there is a market. Notso's abso-blooming-lutely right - with pairs of 744s following each other out of HKG and SIN each and every night heading for LHR from both BA and SQ or CX (that's 4 744s out of each airport) and with demand going up, of course it'll be needed. There are only so many slots at LHR, CDG, FRA et al, so the only way is increase the aircraft size. this is where fragmentation falls over. Still, I do look forward to taking a 7E7 directly from Leeds-Bradford to Indianapolis
The other issue is, of course, the decrease in cost per seat. If your competitors are flying 744s but you can afford to offer a ticket price 10 or 20% lower because of the seat mile costs of the A380, then who are the pax going to flock to? Especially if this involves the service levels of SQ or Emirates for example. You can stimulate demand by doing this, though the tail wagging the dog scenario is all too true these days!
I once had to visit brand A in Toulouse. Went to Paris for a little vac. first and so tried to book tickets Paris-Toulouse. easyJet was about 80 Euros return. Air France (requesting info. by phone) was about 400 Euros. I asked the young lady at Air France why this should be when I could get an easyJet ticket for 80 Euros and was met with the reply that "they don't have the quality of Air France, monsieur". Can you guess who I flew with? This will be the same sort of phenomenon that occurs after EIS of the A380! If you don't have it, you just CAN'T compete.