Airbus Announces The End of the A380

On Thursday, Valentines day, Airbus confirmed the production of the A380 double-decker jumbo jet will end when currently booked sales are delivered.  That's currently scheduled for 2021.  The main problem the aircraft had was that it didn't fit in existing airports, so any airline wanting to fly the aircraft had to fly to a few specific places.  The infrastructure problem also meant that getting self-loading cargo on and off could take longer than it might have.  To get into other airports would require paying for the construction work.

Jonathan M. Gitlin, writing at Ars Technica adds:

Unlike the 747, it doesn't appear set to have a continued career carrying cargo, either. You'd expect the biggest passenger plane of the skies to make a pretty decent freighter. But there's no folding nose variant, so you can't take full advantage of its commodious interior to carry really big stuff.

While the aircraft never seemed to capture the public attention the Boeing 747 did, it was a masterful engineering job.  When I saw my first 747, I'm sure my reaction was typical: "it'll never fly"; I'm sure most people's reactions to the A380 were the same.  It's always awe-inspiring to see these marvels of engineering take off and land as gracefully as they do.  Few outside the industry know that even with its massive size, the A380 had to be tested to ensure it could be evacuated by a plane full of passengers, who needed to be untrained volunteers (with a defined mix of females to males and ages over 50 to under 50) in less than 90 seconds.  853 passengers and 20 crew disembarked in the dark in 78 seconds, with half of the plane's exits arbitrarily blocked.  (I've commented on this before)

What probably caught most peoples' attention is the opulence in the first class and business class areas of the aircraft.

Flying long-distance in an A380 can be an opulent affair. Both Singapore Airlines and Emirates have private first class suites on board, and the flying bar—first seen on the original jumbo jet—has made something of a comeback, too. The promo shots have a certain air of "crew quarters on NCC-1701D," although you'll see from the gallery (or on YouTube) that they're a little smaller than that. Further aft things are more spartan, and pick the upper deck because the 2-4-2 layout is less cramped than downstairs' 3-4-3.

I've only been fortunate enough to fly an A380 once (of late 747s appear to be the preferred type for Dulles to Heathrow). But that one trip made me fall for the big plastic bird. It was a quiet and smooth ride, and the bathrooms at the front of the upper deck were bigger than the bathrooms of some houses I've lived in. Here's to you, you majestic flying cruise liner.

I've never flown one of these "carbon composite skywhales" as Gitlin calls them.  I've never been closer than seeing one out of window in the airport or from another plane.  A friend I worked with told me about working on the HF Radio antenna on the vertical stabilizer and being so wrapped up in his task he was blind to where he was.  When the job was done and he stood up to get his tools together, looked around himself, and was suddenly shocked at how big the airplane was; at how far away the wingtips were.  I know, however, that every A380 contains radios on which I was on the design team, and I enjoy knowing that. 

Workers at Airbus in Hamburg, Germany working on two of the three floors in the aircraft.  Getty Images, Jason Alden photo from a nice photo spread on Ars Technica.