I can only add to the responses about airports.
It is much, much easier to design and build a very large aircraft such as this one than it is to create the environment in which it can operate at its full potential.
The airport industry has not really caught up with the B747, or any other later aircraft offering similar passenger loads. And the B747 first flew in the 1960's.
Most airports simply create parking stands for the large aircraft, and consider their job done. They might have to upgrade pavement strengths as well.
But the real problems with these aircraft start in the terminal, airdide and landside, where few if any airports are really designed to cope efficiently with the peak flows these aircraft generate. Just as a starter, think how long it takes to deplane a full B747, and then wonder why such nonsense happens. It's not set in the Holy Writ that you can only use 2 doors; but most airport managements and their architects believe that it is, which is why it is now a "fact of life" that no-one dares to challenge. Well, I do. (In BAA that meant a lot of unpleasant meetings, usually with a bunch of grocers talking about "footfall" and how to prolong passengers' misery so that they had more time to buy over-priced tat.)
Intermineable queueing in both directions, crowded discomfort, inability to handle massive disruption for reasons such as fog, are all the consequences of airport owners and managements failing totally to grasp their responsibilities as opposed to maximising their retail spend. The excuse that problems are exacerbated by security does not wash any longer. The industry has had 15 years to catch up with that, or rather the USA has had 15 years, the rest of the world 50 years.
My heart sinks when I see brand new, beautiful, modern terminals (eg LHR T5 and T2) which simply perpetuate the fundamental design flaws of their predecessors, wrapped up to look, but not to be different.
So, my suggestion is to put away the aircraft design, and focus on airport design. Bin all the received wisdoms that architects and layout designers hold so sacred. Start afresh. Use technology imaginatively, rather than as a means of just automating and consolidating existing processes and methods. Unless someone does that, the world's airports will always be the reason we cannot advance.
Last edited by Capot; 7th Feb 2016 at 12:02.