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A380 is dead....

The last production A380 will be delivered in 24 months time (that means that the last one is already in the production cycle).  I've never been onboard the A380 aircraft -- I just didn't fly it.   When the A380 became the new super heavy aircraft king of the world it was evident that there are two different issues here by each of the two dominant aircraft manufacturers.

Whereas Boeing has largely decided to cancel the B747 type about 5 years ago, Airbus was the only player on the heavy metal business.  Boeing instead has concentrated on twin-engine aircraft with the B777 and the B787.  Now the 777 is a seriously large aircraft with a capacity of up to 550 sardines passengers.

I was well acquainted with the decision process at Boeing; since they were looking at a possible new variant of the B747 -- and to them, the numbers didn't work (and the cost for them was a fraction of the cost of developing the A380).  Boeing's planning team could not justify the aircraft based on "potential" demand -- even taking the Middle East in consideration.  The problem is that Boeing foresaw Asian demand to grow, but that growth would be regional.

Boeing has been proven right on this topic.  Airbus spent $25 billion and recovered probably 60/70% of the total program costs.  It has not been profitable and Airbus will have to make a huge write-off. 

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