A 300-400 person A380 is a very light A380: Emirates go from 489 passengers (ultra long-range version) up to 615 passengers (2 class long-range). The A380 is that huge. Also I don't think there are many 100 passengers airliners capable of crossing the Atlantic: long range single aisle (A321NEO-LR) seats around 180.

Look at BA flight 001, which is a transatlantic flight from LCY/SNN to JFK in an Airbus A318-100 [0] with only 32 (business class) seats. According to BA, a standard two class configuration would seat 107. Admittedly, it has to refuel in Shannon to allow it to make the Westbound leg, but the Eastbound trip goes non-stop from New York to London.

0. https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/about-ba/fl...

On the other hand the A318 is not in production anymore, and I doubt it would cross the pond with 107 seats. There's two tendencies in the market of airliners at the moment: single aisles are getting bigger, and twin aisles are getting smaller.

This is pretty noticeable on Airbus side for single aisles: the A321 used to be little more than an anecdote, now Airbus is ramping up the A321NEO to be about a third of its entire A320NEO family production (anticipating upsizing in the order book).

On the wide-body side many 747 have been replaced by 777-300ER, A350-900 and 787-9. Quite the downsizing. 787-9, A350-900 and 787-10 are raking in orders. Meanwhile the A380 is dying, the 747-8 is all but dead (though the 747-8F is still there). The 777-9 order book is a caricature of that of the A380 (Emirates + some anecdotes, even more so with Etihad likely to cancel). A350-1000 and 777-8 sales are underwhelming to say the least (although the latter will become a tremendous freighter).

Is there an issue with congestion into major airports like New York and London with more smaller planes instead of fewer larger planes? An A380 type plane holds about 3x the number of people as the mid-sized ones right? Fewer takeoffs and landings would be another benefit.

I would guess that the congestion advantage goes to more smaller planes. Those from NC no longer go to NYC as a stop over when they can take a direct flight, that means the plane from NC to NYC doesn't need to be scheduled to arrive and unload in time for everyone to get the the large plane, and reload as soon as everyone from the large plane gets to the small one. Instead the only people on that plane from NC want to be in NYC and so the plane can arrive anytime so you can schedule them to arrive at different times.

That is the hub and spoke model requires the airport to have bursts of busy times as everyone tries to reach their plane at once. With smaller planes you can spread thing out more.

An A380 is in the highest wake turbulence category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence), requiring more separation from other airplanes in-flight. There are other issues that may reduce the advantage of an A380 over smaller aircraft, like taxiway width limitation and runway weight limitations.

NYC to London presumably could still support the larger plane.

There's something like 70 London to New York flights a day so in theory yes from a passenger numbers PoV it could support the A380 once there's terminal infrastructure.

But one of the reasons BA run so many flights (10?) a day is so that customers have choice and flexibility - it's not unknown for people to book business or first class seats on multiple flights in the same day so they can fly earlier if their schedule allows

Sure, there is convenience to having multiple flights a day. However, over say a half-dozen, diminishing returns kick in.

Well BA run 12 flights a day between London and NYC (9 from Heathrow, 1 each from City and Gatwick) and it seems to work for them.

They're catering to the people traveling business class who want flexibility and it seems to work for them - they run something like 86 biz class seats and only 140ish economy on some flights

Unlikely. Those who really want to get to Stockholm will not get on the NYC to London plane if they can get a direct plane. Substitute ALL other cities in Europe for Stockholm and a fair number of people are not on that plane. Those who do want to get from NYC to London have different schedules, some want to take the 5am flight and get to London in the afternoon, some want to get to the airport at a normal time and still get to London at a good hour. Some want to leave right after the days work is done. Some want a last supper with their family before leaving... Smaller planes are customer friendly. Also smaller planes leaves more room for redundancy - if one plane is broke you have less people who need to be rerouted to some other planes making it more likely you can get everyone to London without a major delay.

You may be underestimating the number of passengers flying direct between two megacities sharing a similar culture/language.

Here on the west coast there is a packed to the gills flight almost every hour from LA to Houston, and more than one airline servicing the route as well.

British Airways recently added London-Chicago on a a380.

They killed their 747 and replaced it with an A380. Always had 2-3 flights per day ORD-LHR.

They also already have a London-DC A380 flight almost daily.

And SFO

I've been flying Raleigh to London nonstop every 2 or 3 years since 1995. I don't know if there is a direct to Paris flight.

There's one (on DL) but it doesn't fly daily until peak season.