The true goal of commercial airplane design is to find a plane that fits demand of a particular route, so it's always full. With an A380, you can do well on lon

The true goal of commercial airplane design is to find a plane that fits demand of a particular route, so it's always full. With an A380, you can do well on long haul popular flights, but even with those flights, you have very little flexibility if things change. Panam invested heavily in the 747 back in the day, and they minted money by offering relatively reasonably priced international long haul flights. But when gas prices and terrorism spiked, diminishing demand, they had these huge gas guzzling planes that they couldn't fill up. The A380 is really impressive, and it works well (now) on several specific routes. But it's clear that the industry is moving towards fuel efficient, more reasonably sized planes like the 787 and the A350 that are efficient on both long and short haul flights.