There are two major future super-jumbo markets not mentioned here, and they're whoppers: core domestic routes in China and India, eg. Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou/Hong Kong and Delhi/Mumbai/Chennai/Hyderabad/Kolkata. The distances are too long to be covered by any form of terrestrial transport, even bullet train (there's already one for BJ-SH, but it takes five hours), and as both countries get richer, demand will grow exponentially. China's airports are huge, but badly hampered by military ATC restrictions, while India's byzantine permitting process means eg. Mumbai's airport isn't going to expand any time soon (and I'm not holding my breath for the construction of Navi Mumbai), which means the only way to increase capacity is larger planes. And indeed, China Southern is already flying A380s domestically.<p><a href="http://www.ausbt.com.au/the-world-s-shortest-airbus-a380-flights-starting-at-two-hours" rel="nofollow">http://www.ausbt.com.au/the-world-s-shortest-airbus-a380-fli...</a>
A weird thing to watch is three separate Auckland (New Zealand) to Dubai Emirates A380 flights depart 15 minutes apart, every day. Why such huge capacity on this obscure transcontinental route ? These three flights are really Sydney-Dubai, Melbourne-Dubai and Brisbane-Dubai. I heard from someone that the airport fees mean it is cheaper for Emirates to park three A380s in Auckland for most of the day than the Australian airports.<p>For as long as this arrangement lasts, it means that these amazing planes are serving the trans-Tasman (NZ-Aus) route every day. Believe me, there is no comparison at all in flying comfort between an Emirates A380 and any kind of 737/A320 (especially given that the A380s are less than half full).
Curious that the article didn't mention the 787, which is what Boeing bet on rather than an even bigger plane like the A380. Seems like that was a good move.
Maybe I'm not the usual passenger, but I realized recently that it's been many years since I've been on a plane larger than a 737 -- and I fly at least once a month. Most of my flights are to/from reasonable sized but not megacities (SF, St Louis, Kansas City, Nashville, Charleston, Phoenix, etc), and since I try for direct flights, I almost always end up on Embraer 145 or 175 or similar small planes.<p>I think at long as gas prices aren't too high, far more passengers are going to pay a small premium for direct flights on smaller economy planes, and stay away from the 380s and 747s. I couldn't care less if I'm on a fancy plane with a video screen etc -- having to make a connection is 100x worse.
"Air travel is set to more than double from today's 3.3 billion passengers a year to 7.3 billion by 2034, says the International Air Transport Association"<p>Even with more efficient planes, that's a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.
"We fill our aeroplanes because of the way we design the interiors, the amount of money we spend on the brand, and [in] getting the job done."<p>Is this really how people pick an airline? I type in my destination in a web site, sort the options by price, discard the ones with too many or too inconvenient connections, pick the cheaper. The airline is not so important. The plane definitely not, given that on intercontinental routes they are more or less the same and some companies are geographically placed on optimal locations: going from Europe to Australia with one or two stops in a single day basically means flying through the Emirates.