AIRBUS A380: WHY THE BIGGEST PASSENGER PLANE WAS A TOTAL FAILURE

The A380 was Airbus's answer to a large commercial passenger aircraft created by their rival, Boeing. The latter has produced the 747 series aircraft since the late 1960s and is still produced today.

In the early 2000s, Airbus envisioned a mammoth-sized passenger plane that could hold up to 500 passengers. This was made possible by having two full decks above each other and, seven years later, the Airbus A380 was born and put into service.

However, just over 10 years on, the A380s were decommissioned. The reason for this was because it was no longer economical to produce the enormous aircraft.

Major airport hubs around the world had to invest millions of dollars to upgrade their runways to accommodate this huge aircraft. On top of that, its giant wingspan would take up a lot of room when parked, which would prevent other planes from parking beside it, costing the airline substantially more.

But, the biggest issue is that direct flights with the A380 were not always possible, as many airports simply couldn't accommodate them. This made the slightly smaller A340 and Boeings 747 and 777 far more appealing to customers.

On the airline side, it would cost an average of $300,000 per 14-hour flight to carry 500 passengers to their destination. Compare this to a Boeing 777 where it costs 190,000 per 14-hour flight to carry 360 people, the cost became prohibitive. So, according to these figures, although the A380 can carry up to 34% more passengers, it still costs the airline 60% more to fly with the A380.

And, all of this happened before COVID-19 locked down most of the world in 2020...

Take a look at the video below by the YouTube channel, Real Life Lore 2, on Why Was The A380 A Failure?