As a side note, on the way to LHR the other night, had been flying for approx 11 hours and realised that we were now just reaching the MTOW of the 744.....pretty impressive.
brown_hornet, have another think about your post. In QF service, the basic weight of the A380 is 105 tonnes heavier than the B747-400ER which has the same range and 4 class configuration. Not so impressive when you think that you are carrying around a lot of extra weight because somewhere, in the distant future, Airbus intends to stretch the A380 fuselage utilising the existing wing/centre wing box structure. Until then, we have a modern aircraft with many fuel saving technologies trying to overcome an excessive weight problem. Yes, it will make money in comparison with the B744 if you have average load factors above 85% - personally, I believe that a fleet of B777-300ER's would provide much better returns for the shareholders (as well as a lot more satisfaction for the crews).