Precisely what your opinion anyone else's opinion is in relation to climate change or the falsity thereof is irrelevant. Don't remember much of the medieval period, but accept that it may have been warmer or cooler. who really knows?

The point remains that continuing to burn hydrocarbon based fuel, may, at some point actually result in penalties for those emitters beyond a certain threshold.
A market based measure is the objective, which incentives companies and indeed individuals to change their behaviour will be the hoped for outcome.
Presently, basing the decision on simply the price of the said commodity (jet fuel) in this case is perhaps not wise. That is the drum beat. 'Climate change' is what they call it, true or not, tax it they probably will.
For regulatory change in the EU and indeed outside, may see global emissions thresholds established for airlines that push costs at airlines and even maybe their customers.

Whether climate change is man made, natural or some combination of both is not the point. With global narratives focused on emissions, the price of fuel may not be the only consideration into the future.
The industry has got it wrong before.

It's certainly not the beginning of the end of Airbus.
Quite the difference: It shows that not prestige but business perspectives decide about their strategy.

Mmm. If you would please point us to the centre tank on the below picture, your idea will be much clearer.
http://i63.tinypic.com/2h3ctpl.jpg

The proposed, and since deceased, A380F would have had a different floor, for a very good reason. The same reason, actually, you'd want if you're carrying umpteen tons of a fairly dense liquid. So whilst the idea of having a Whale blasting around 200ft above a southern Californian wildfire sounds cool, the actual implementation of the idea may be a bit of challenge, barring the discovery of vibranium that is.

If you give the OP some latitude (I always do), we can assume a translation can call MID (middle) as centre tanks - but what is clear is they referred to using "existing fuel tanks" as fire fighting tanks.

In fact the OP's 3-4 hr Fuel load comment would fit pretty well with the "outer tanks" only and the trim tank part of that total fuel system.

I think all agree the challenge would be too great on a cost effective basis - a moral one has different principals to follow.

Except that building the A380 in the first place was arguably a prestige project......one that they persisted with until they could no longer ignore the "business perspective".

But I agree. Airbus will move on from the A380.

You really cannot compare a new aircraft with an update...

in the long run, Boeing is going to pay $4 Billion just to update MCAS on the MAX....

forget about the engineering cost to design the MAX.

In reality, the A380 has to be one of the best aircraft ever designed (to date).

unfortunately it's excellent design didnt prepare it for the inevitable, time honored conversion to a freighter..

The French have always been strong on "prestige projects" that are/were business disasters, miring organisations in vast amounts of long term debts, to the point they have to drop other worthy projects that are/can be much better.

You can blame the ENA for that, who have always been ultra strong in the management of the EUSSR also.
(Need a bail-out? No problem French always get a "passe partout").

No doubt you will find the "illuminated" management of AF and Airbus/ EADS are drawn from this "prestige" university ENA, spending their time studying how to make France competitive, commit business suicide, add to the growing 2 trillion + pile of French government debt costing 55 billion a year (or 1700+EURO per second) to service in interest payments on their 55,412,270,936€

One wonders how the French survive at all.
They do have the highest level of tax in the world, so their project disasters will always be financed by the earnings of grand children, n'est pas?
They even now try to shut down their only great successes such as their NPPs and replace them with intermittent unreliable sources of energy.

Good examples:-
Euro Tunnel bailed out...

Air France bailed out several times, still loss making.

TGV - SNCF, now one of the most indebted companies in Europe... the subject of a vast bailout in 2018 forced by the unions.
(who spent most of last spring and summer striking to force the government to underwrite the debts).Still loss making,-
Two out of three French high-speed TGV trains are operating at a loss despite the high prices.
SNCF freight - loss making.,,,,314 million euros in 2016 - accumulated debts then amounting to 4 billion euros.
SeaFrance (was owned by SNCF) went t..ts up.(in October 2008 had been losing in the region of €3 million a month)

Superphénix FBR, shut still costing large amounts to dismantle having generated just 7700Gw/h electricity over 11 years,
closed 1998 still not dismantled fully until 2023.
Alsthom - several bailouts attempted mergers.

What could possibly go wrong for Airbus producing a vast expenses paid super prestige project like A380, assume it sells, - it tanks, it's a commercial disaster who pays?

If the French banking and insurance market fails, Airbus will be casualty number 1, so it may not be able to "move on", as you put it, and the blame will lie at the door of the 380.
(If you don't believe me look at what happened at Embraer in 5yrs)

French tax rates are nowhere near the 50% + tax rate of Belgium.

So, no change from regular old pilots eh? :E :ok:

This is a bit JB... but the talk of water bombing... any merit in A380s being used for air to air fuelling? I can imagine the capacity is attractive but again the size present logistical issues not to mention presenting a bigger target...

Now if only air to air water transfer were a thing.. imagine a mama whale circling while the kids come back and top up the fire fighting tanks to reduce time/distance to base... Can't imagine many fires where the payoff would be worth the expense though...

Evergreen developed a 747 based water bomber about 10 years ago - before Evergreen went belly up. Global then picked up what Evergreen had developed and installed it into a 747-400 - the Global Supertanker. It has a capacity of ~18,000 gallons of water/fire retardant. Apparently it works OK - got used quite a bit during the big California wild fires last year. But, even with a ready supply of old 747s headed for the boneyard, there doesn't appear to be much interest in building another one even though the development work is pretty much done.
I don't know why the lack of interest in increasing the 747 water bomber fleet - perhaps a water bomber that big is just too limited and specialized. But whatever the reason, an A380 water bomber would run into the same issue(s), along with the added costs of development and the limited number of airports it could use.

That's because, as we're figuring out, aerial firefighting is becoming increasingly ineffective against these "big" fires : https://www.latimes.com/local/califo...407-story.html

We spend so much money on the aerial effort - and see marginal benefits. The Global Supertanker is quite a sight to see - we've seen it here in California too many times over the past couple of years. But - it's horribly expensive to operate and weather and darkness keeps it grounded when it's arguably most useful (night time when fires tend to calm down).

Those tankers need to maneuver in mountainous terrain - it would be something to see an A380 trying to get low enough for an effective pass . . .

That puts it into perspective doesn't it. Even with the massive debacle that is the 737 MAX, from a financial perspective the A380 was 2-3 times worse.

Yebbut the A380 was cursed by having been publicly associated with the patron saint of boondoggles, our lady Grace Tepp-Ford.
Any project which invokes her name is doomed to be cancelled at great expense to both public and private funds.
See also TSR2 etc.

Posted this on 18 July 2018 and at least twice years before that, "The A380 Should Never Have Seen The Light of Day"

"The A380 should never have seen the light of day. Boeing offered Airbus a joint effort which Airbus refused, that was the writing on the wall, Boeing cancelling all their plans for an ultra large long haul aircraft sealed the fate of the A380. It commanded, at best, a small niche market for a few of the major carriers on certain routes. Passengers like it but that alone doesn’t make it a commercial success. Possibly intended as a B747 replacement but the B747 had already been replaced by a number of both Boeing and AirBus big twins. Quite significant is the fact that right now there is no apparent market for the 10 year old airframes that are coming up for disposal at the end of their lease period. (Put most of this on PPRuNe years ago, wasn’t believed though!)"

There possibly is a new market for used A380's that current owners want to offload.

But it will be a new type of work -
That maybe a new online platform that has some departure date flexibility until X days in advance, then gets locked in with higher loads.
Tourist promotions for just off season destinations - flight accommodation packages for 800 people.
Cruise ship transfers.

But if there is a new market I believe it will be in the available capacity of +800 and other than RPT type operation, most likely with the flight ancillary to the real revenue obtained.