Airbus erred. They thought there was a market for super jumbo jets.
A few airlines agreed, for a while, but most are coming to realize that the growth markets aren't just in jumbo capacity, long haul routes. The expansion of short and medium haul routes, coupled with long haul capabilities gives Boeing the advantage of economy.
Buy a fleet of 787's and use them everywhere. Buy a fleet of A380s and you're stuck operating specific routes where the long haul market is large and consistent, which are quite few and heavily competitive. And the markets with short and medium haul needs aren't likely to have the airport facilities to handle the A380, nor are they likely to go to the expense of upgrading.
This reminds me of the US Auto industry in the 60's. Build them bigger and put on tail fins and everything will be okay. I keep looking for those fins on the 380, they must be somewhere.
Boeing did the market research and Airbust didn't. Boeing studied the market for over a year. They even explored a joint venture with Airbus based on the a doubledeck 747. Again it was panned. Airplanes should be built to satisfy maket needs, not to compensate for the small members of European leaders.
I thought from the beginning that Airbus was way over estimating the market for widebodies this size. But according to Abaloufia, there is/are major technical problem/s as well. I also heard that a number of top execs with Airbus dropped a load of shares on the market last week. May the SEC of Europe have good hunting.