A380 isn't selling (?)

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by munna21977

In your list, I am surprised that Riyadh and Dammam airports are not there. King Khalid Airport and King Fahd airport are some of the world's biggest airports in terms of Area

King Khalid Airport and King Fahd Airports are growing in passenger numbers, but are still pretty low. Of course, they have plenty of room to accomodate the A380.

King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah is the busiest airport in Saudi Arabia, and they have scheduled service to Dubai.

The A380 flies 13 busy routes 2700 miles or less which can be easily flown by a B737.

Miles
530 (EK) Dubai (DXB) – Kuwait (KWI)
1,060 (EK) Dubai (DXB) – Jeddah (JED)
1,170 (CZ) Guangzhou (CAN) – Beijing (PEK)
1,200 (EK) Dubai (DXB) – Mumbai (BOM)
1,200 (CZ) Beijing (PEK) – Shenzhen (SZX)
1,290 (OZ) Seoul (ICN) – Hong Kong (HKG)
1,600 (SQ) Singapore (SIN) – Hong Kong (HKG)
2,290 (EK) Dubai (DXB) – Moscow (DME)
2,368 (SQ) Singapore (SIN) – Shanghai (PVG)
2,440 (SQ) Singapore (SIN) – Mumbai (BOM)
2,580 (SQ) Singapore (SIN) – Delhi (DEL)
2,613 (TG) Bangkok (BKK) – Osaka (KIX)
2,700 (EK) Dubai (DXB) – Rome (FCO)

LAX is the third busiest airport for A380's (behind Dubai and Singapore), despite not being a hub. It has flights from 8 (of 11) operators, and 9 routes (two from Qantas).

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by munna21977

I have been to Bombay/Mumbai many times and most of my friends who are born and brought up there call it Bombay only. People call Baroda,Poona, Bangalore, Calcutta instead of changed names of Vadodara, Pune, Bengaluru, Kolkata. People identify places with more popular names rather then new names which are there due to political reasons only.

Bombay-Official name is Mumbai. Official language is Marathi. In reality, 60% of the remaining population speak Hindi/English and call it Bombay. Infact even the Marathi speaking population use Hindi in their day-to-day life. Official name is changed just because of political reasons to identify with the local identity and do away with the Colonial past.

But the name of the destination airport on the published schedules is Mumbai Airport. That's the name airlines use. Just look at the post following yours... it lists Mumbai, not Bombay. So why confuse the question?

[Des-Lab]

Although Airbus built it, credit for the A380 concept actually belongs to the proposed MD-12 which was cancelled due to lack of interest. Which were it not for Emirates Airlines, would've likely happened to the -380 as well.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Des-Lab

...proposed MD-12 which was cancelled due to lack of interest.

Which were it not for Emirates Airlines, would've likely happened to the -380 as well.

On July 24, 2000, Emirates became the first customer making a firm order commitment, the program officially launched on December 19, 2000.

CNN Airbus jumbo on runway December 19, 2000

Airbus currently has no answer to Boeing's 30-year dominance of the jumbo jet market, but has won 50 firm orders from six airlines "Air France SA, Emirates Airlines, International Lease Finance Corp, Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Virgin Atlantic " for the A380.

In addition, the same six customers have taken options to buy another 42 of the new jets, known until now as the A3XX.

But the company needs to book between 250 and 300 A380 orders before the project breaks even, analysts said, cautioning that it was too early to say whether the A380 would be a success.

I don't know that Emirates was totally responsible for launching the program, but they certainly kept it going once the recession began.

That early estimate that "between 250 and 300 A380 orders" were all that were needed to break even turned out to be a joke. Ironically, that is probably about how many they will produce before the production line is shut down.

Of those initial orders, Virgin Atlantic still has deferred there 6 jets to 2018, Qantas took only 12 out of 20 (and has deferred the others until they lay off 5000 people), Singapore took 19 out of 24 orders, Air France took 10 out of 12, and I am not sure if ILFC took any.

Emirates has said they will not take any more above the 140 on order without a major improvement in fuel efficiency.

Surprisingly Delta has only 10 widebodies that are less than 12.5 years old. Airbus is hoping against hope that Delta will cave and invest in the A380 (despite Delta's publicly pointing out that the plane is for another era).