the fact that it has two decks could be the first defining feature. And while i am not a real fan of this aircraft, i also admit its certainly impressive in terms of size and passenger capacity.

and interestingly, it's almost a copy of the proposed McDonnell-Douglas MD-12

Not sure if it was true..but heard it was overweight..or something like that...

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Not forgetting the good old London Transport omnibus. Plenty of room on top. Hold very tightly - ting ting.....!

There are very few original design concepts that haven't been thought of & used before.

The A380, is just a murderer, it is because of that plane and many other large airliners that Concorde is no longer with us

You know its so strange, Loads of my freinds (non fs and aviation) have seen pictures of the A380, with its casino's, cinemas and bars and think this will be the case with all airlines. They find it hard to belive when I explain to them that on 99 out of 100 airlines will have the entire aircraft packed with seats. Im sure this is the case with many people aswell. If British Airways is flying to JFK on a 747 and Virgin is doing the same but on a A380, a large amout of people will go out of thier way just to have a go on the gym on the top deck! Dont know if this is helpfull to this convo, Probably not but hey!

Born_2_fly

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That's competition for you - the last thing anyone needs is a Boeing monopoly...

Charlie

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At the beginning, the 747 was touted with a walkup piano bar, lounges etc.  American Airlines did have something like that early on, but it quickly faded out.

I foresee that few, if any A380s will have the "amenities", at least, at "Y" class prices.

They are based in Europe, the main factory is in France, but they cant be called a French company

Airbus is a consortium of mainly German, French, British and (I think) Italian companies, with the pieces flown to Toulouse in France and assembled there, or in Hamburg, Germany.

I was in Nantes, France last week where they make some of the pieces, and I saw a Beluga transporter there, waiting to take some of the pieces for assembly. Huge thing.



So what's with the A350 then? It sounds as if it'll be something like a modified A330.

Now now, calm down, this seems to be bordering on a flame war.

The A380 has a tailplane the size of a 737's wings. That is big but I, like many, would never fly on a plane packed with more than 500 other people. The real challenge is going to be finding airports large enough for it, not many exist. I doubt many an airport will spend the money on expanding for so little gain as well. I, being very concerned about the environment, am biased towards smaller and more efficient aircraft like the 7E7 (which is designed with efficiency in mind) so you won't hear a word of good about the A380 from me.