"Frankly I am surprised at the shere short sightedness of the number here who have denigrated it and assumed there was no room for it in the future, and predicted failure".
Still dreaming then Rainboe? From a commercial standpoint the A380 is a dead duck, a dinosaur, but possibly a technical success.
As has all been said before, the A380 fills a niche market that the airlines won't deny. BA's recent order confirms this, 12 to 17 aircraft is not a fleet replacement, BA have operated in excess of 50 B744.
The B744 replacement is not the A380, it is the B777 family and to a lesser extent the A330 and A340-500 and A340 -600. In this respect it is fairly obvious that Airbus got it wrong. Assuming all major carriers order their niche market requirement, the A380 will still have a problem getting to 500 aircraft delivered, forget 1500. They still have a big problem to break even, it was once in the order of 270 aircraft but given late delivery and cost over-runs is now around the 500 figure.
Your surprise at so many of us having a pessimistic outlook for the A380 is only balanced by our disbelief at your apparently un-supported optimistic view for the future for the A380.
It is very unrealistic to compare the introduction of the B747 with the introduction of the A380. The B747 only had to compete with a few L1011, a few DC10 and some DC8 and B707 aircraft and even fewer, (sadly), VC10 aircraft, hardly comparable with today's aircraft market.
Commercially, the A380 is a dead duck.
Last edited by parabellum; 30th Sep 2007 at 11:02.