Nowadays there are budget airlines using budget airports with very long taxi rides to somewhere useful. You can't argue with price. Yet right now we are in an age of cheap oil that facilitates this. Had we not had the taps fully open and the fuel taxed then maybe the A380 would be king and it be hard to justify the budget flight model.
Brexit really is not helping the A380 cause. The wings are made in a part of England that was changed to be Wales so that an EU development grant could be obtained. In the post-Brexit world where nobody in power cares about jobs it is likely that Airbus rationalise production and give the formerly United Kingdom the heave-ho. They can make all the A380's the world really needs and call it a day in Blighty.
Is that true? I see the border was last changed in 1972, but that's well before the EU and regional development funding was thought about.
It really is an amazing sight. It absolutely dwarves everything else in the sky.