Airlines don't exist without passengers and what do they prefer?
For the same price, they'll take the shower, certainly. As long as the companies charge the same, they'll take the more fancy stuff, if there's a choice. However, for a discount of a couple of dirty hams they will board anything!! That's what it is today.
It's the company who can provide the most fancy ride at the same price that makes the cut. OK, some premium passengers prioritise schedule and frequency, but in general it's the price that matters.
That lead me to what I said earlier, that there will be a limit to what EK can afford with respect to the added luxury versus the higher consumption on the A380. At the moment, with the 'wow'-factor, the dugong product seems to work out.
I simply stated that with a predicted erosion of the numbers and price paid by premium passengers and with the assumed increase in fuel price, there will be a line crossed where the dugong costs too much.
Let's hope that both effects do not happen, with the number of 380's on order.
There's another thing:
It's not entirely correct to compare the 77W on the West Coast routes. It has never been designed for such routes and Boeing never propagated it for that. In contrast Airbus has boasted the dugong for the ULR.
The real product for such routes are the 77L or the 345 and there the verdict of fuel guzzling is known.
So basically the performance, precisely the capability of full cabin versus all the bags and some cargo, should be compared between a 77L and a 380.
Now logically enough the higher number of seats might speak for the dugong, but the almost any-day capability of the 77L to take full load might speak for a double 77L shift.
That's for the bean counters, again, or as a matter of fact for the station managers, they quite often do not agree!! But don't compare a aircraft that was not designed for a route with another one that has (all though today the earlier still performs better .....)