Look unless we get a major pickup in the global market both VLA have failed in their passenger role. Airbus will hopefully make most of their money back by selling as close to their break even point as possible, Boeing will hopefully make most of their money back in freighters (748f is the only game in town atm). The USA is drilling everything dark at the moment and that will drop crude price, but in the long run, big twins are the future. How many pax routes justify the added range of the 748 over the largest twins? I think every time I look out the windows of my tower in 20 years every aircraft will look almost identical, which depresses me. Bring back Concorde and Tristars and VC-10s any day