It appears to be an excellent plane, but it was the Concorde of its time. Or the F-35. Too large and complex to build and too few customers. The economic downturn and seismic shift in demand from hub and spoke as you point out was the nail in the coffin. I desperately need to go fly one of the “good ones” before they are all converted to 100% economy and then retired…

The biggest irony of the whole affair is, that the notorious delayed berlin airport was redesigned and rebuilt, to accommodate the A380 and when it was finally done, the plane was no longer relevant.

Yeah but the changes needed are not exclusive for the A380, but fit the 777 and 350 as well (I think. At least the 777 and of course the 747 which is more common)

Most airports came before the A380, you'd change one/two gates at most.

777X gets folding wingtips, is that to fit in gates without needing any such changes?

The original 777 had an option for folding wingtips. ISTR American Airlines asked for it so that they could operate out of some space constrained airports on domestic routes. The engineering was done, the avionics have options for folding wingtips, and then nobody ever ordered the plane with them.

Exactly that.

Pretty much nobody flies the 747 any more for passenger ops.

Lufthansa does, 747-8s though.

You really do - flying business class on the top deck of the A380 is a very comfortable experience.

Doesn't beat the top deck of a 747 in business for the cool factor, but I've never woken up after an overnight flight feeling so refreshed before.

The emirates first class on the A380 is a really special experience. It’s not the most polished F product out there anymore, but the shower is hard to beat.

Book the shower right before landing and step off the plane feeling nice and fresh. It’s always easy to spot the F pax from the unwashed masses.

TIL I am unwashed

A380 is also quite a fuel-inefficient plane. It optimizes for passenger load per aircraft seemingly at the expense of everything else.

A shame the A380 is given a good kicking generally over stuff like this ... it's easily my favourite plane in terms of flight experience ... I actually started enjoying flying again and when booking holidays or work flights, filtering flights specifically to make sure I got on the A380.

Hope it's around for many years.

The A380 was a smooth ride, but oh so boring to fly on. But maybe I am weird for liking to fly on tiny things like ERJ135. In a A380 it's just 8 hours of noisy bus ride with way to many people.

ERJ135, sounds good for maybe a short flight! ...

8 hours of noisy bus ride? Weird, I never found the A380 like that and it's not as if I was up front or anything. Engine noice was minimal, fairly comfortable. Maybe just lucky.

Having said that, I recall a distinct difference between airliners. Qantas A380 wasn't as nice in comparison to the Emirates.