Pikabo,
Every aircraft type that's permitted to fly is only permitted to operate for civil air transport because it is safe. In other words its design, materials and performance have been tested exhaustively, including submitting it to extremes that it will never go anywhere near in normal service. So you can rest easy on that point.
What causes accidents, in aviation as in anything else, is human error. The aviation industry, through the operation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation since the end of WWII, has done 20 times as much as any other industry where human error kills people, such as railways, ferry operators, bus operators and doctors, to eliminate the risk of human error by a combination of regulated and high quality training, very detailed operating regulations, and intense regulatory oversight backed by law.
It is only in the aviation industry, in Europe at least (and I'm sure in most other well-developed, mature countries) that a Chief Executive is nominated as "The Accountable Manager" who is personally responsible for the safety of the organisation. The word Accountable means what it says. Prison looms for the Accountable Manager if people are harmed due to lack of proper safety management, and rightly so.
(Unlike, say, the rail industry in the UK, where when people are killed because the Company's Directors are totally incompetent and unfit, people lower down the chain get blamed while the said "Directors", including the CEO or whatever, negotiate their next bonus.)
This is why, statistically, air travel is the safest form of transport where millions of people board an aircraft every day round the world without a thought for safety. And millions arrive just as they expect to without any upset. Like lots of people in this forum, apart from aircrew whose job is to fly, I do that 2-3 times a month and have done so, all over the world, since 1969. Each flight is 1,000 times more safe than the surface journey that follows it to the hotel or back to home.
So the answer to your question is that of course the A380 is safe; it would be grounded if there were the tiniest smidgen of doubt about that. And the airlines which operate it are some of the world's leaders in training, quality management and safety management.
Enjoy your flight. But plan your seat location, if you can, to be at the front of the Immigration queue.
Last edited by Capot; 13th Oct 2012 at 10:15.