But the passengers that matter most to airlines are flying business or first class anyway. Those seats are just as comfortable on an A330, A340, 787, 777, or 747. Given equal comfort levels, scheduling is more important than the size of the aircraft. Two 787's can carry the same number of passengers as one A380 while carrying over three times the revenue cargo and having more flexibility in scheduling.
Scheduling problems as you describe are probably why the A380 has had such dismal sales.
All passengers have some importance for an airline, or we’d see all first class airlines. I think we actually have but as I recall they haven’t done too well, which actually is a bit surprising to me.
I really appreciated EVA Air’s Evergreen Deluxe class, which is about $200 more than tourist class and gives you business class seats but only slightly over tourist class amenities. It made my flight to the Philippines via Taipei, Taiwan a great deal more pleasant, even though only the long LAX to Taipei flight is formally Deluxe Class(*).
I wish more airlines would do something like that. If the A380 was designed with that type of service in mind, I’d probably cheer it on — but from what I’ve seen it looks like EVA Air with its Boeing 747s is more innovative than Airbus in this regard.
You would think EVA would love the A380 since they run two flights with 747s from LAX to Taipei that leave within about an hour or two of each other, but I haven’t seen them in reference to the A380 at all.
D
(*) As an interesting sidebar, the Taipei, Taiwan airport is one of the most inhospitable airports I have ever visited despite being sleek, ultra-modern and conspicuously expensive in design and construction. A gleaming, shiny, conspicuously efficient looking bottled water vending machine that appeared to accept no known currency, even currency it claimed to like, was just one of the ugly surprises.