That great big plane is the Airbus 380, the largest passenger jet plane in the world. A double-decker, offering extraordinary comfort and stability, private flat-bed suites, lounge and cocktail bar, and a personal mini-bar at each seat. Some had shower spas on board. An escalator takes you from the first-floor deck up to the second-floor deck. The A380 maximum one-class capacity is 868 people.

Some 300 A380s were built, half sold to the Dubai-based Emirates. Airbus thought they could compete with the Boeing 747. The Boeing 747 was unveiled in September 1968, long before the A380 came on the market. The A380 came late to the party. Boeing was flying over 800 747s before the A380 lifted off the runway. The last Boeing 747 rolled out of the Boeing factory in December 2022. There’s lots of Boeing 747s flying today, both passenger and freighters.

The A380 was in production for 12 years, but there were problems from the git-go. The Airbus 380 had structural troubles. The plane is huge, and the airframe developed cracks more frequently than other aircraft. The A380 needed to be inspected frequently, driving up maintenance costs. The wingspan was 50 feet wider than the Boeing 747, so wide that most airports did not have ramp space for such a large plane. It would not fit into the normal gates.

The A380 has four engines, but the technology has evolved with a new generation of super-efficient, twin-engine planes such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners and Airbus’s own A350. Fuel is the biggest operating cost for an airliner, and four engines are thirstier than two engines. The A380 takes on 85,000 gallons of petrol. Those tanker trucks we see on the Interstate hold about 10,000 gallons of something.

Before these new twin-engines planes came along, twin engine planes were not allowed to fly over oceans. A plane could not be more than 60 minutes from a diversion airport. Ocean-hopping required four engines. Twins are more efficient and easier to fill up with passengers. There’s only a handful of high density, long-distance routes for an A380 to operate at a profit.

Airbus had trouble filling up planes. A half-full A380 is about the same number of passengers as a full Boeing 777, but costs twice as much to fly. Those smaller, but full, planes pilfered all the sales from the A380. German Lufthansa sold six A380 back to Airbus, claiming they were unprofitable. Australian Qantas cancelled its last A380 and announced they will switch to Boeing 777X. France retired all ten A380s and went with A220s and A300s.

Airbus is a joint France and Great Britain venture, heavily subsidized by their governments. The R&D (Research and Development) for the A380 was paid by European “launch subsidies.”  These monies must be paid back if the plane reaches a certain level of commercial success. If the A380 isn’t successful, and it wasn’t, the money does not have to be paid back. It wasn’t, so Airbus plowed their dough into the A350, which made them tons of money. The EU taxpayers picked up the tab.

The last A380 rolled out of the factory in Toulouse, France in September 2020. The headline in a newspaper read, “The Last A380 Just Rolled Off Airbus’ Production Line. It May Never Fly A Single Passenger.” As of November 2024, half of the A380s are scrapped, in storage, or in maintenance.

Today, Airbus has been very successful with their A320, A330/A340, and A350 series of planes.

They are competing nicely with Boeing’s 777 and 787. Both are wide body, twin-engine, over-the-oceans aircraft.

One Airbus executive boasted, “We are going to build something bigger than the 747, no matter what the market projections say.” Well, Airbus lost their shirt on that one. They also lost another shirt on the SST (Super Sonic Transport) Concorde. A British official said, “Why should Airbus be concerned when the taxpayers are bailing you out.”

Sources: forbes.com, www.airbus.com, http://www.cnn.com