Who are the customers? Customers want cheap flights. Many people in the world can't even afford a plane ticket. And the Airbus A380 Stretch could have carried 1000 passengers. Lets see, I think it is too early for a verdict.
The A380 is one of my favourite aircraft. I never flew on a 747 and likely never will now, so it's the next best thing I've got for a two-deck experience.
This is a post about the A340, 747, DC-10 (3x engine), and A380 dying (or being already dead). What more verification do you need?
Airlines can and do charge higher air-fares for direct travel.
I said the verdict is not final because things can change:
France’s Plan To Ban Short-Haul Domestic Flights Wins Approval From European Commission https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/12/03/frances-...
So if countries start banning short haul domestic flights then the hub model may come back, at least in some countries with decent train transport. Combine this with the price sensitive customers I mentioned, and then I stay by my prediction. The verdict is not final.
The A380 is finished. Dead. Morte. Program over, and never made a profit.
It was a magnificent machine, that no one asked for.
The car that Homer designed, with wings.
This verdict was already decided, everyone went home, and the lights were switched off.
It was just to much, to soon with the wrong engines.
Ticket prices have little to do with how many passengers a plane can carry at once. The A380 failed in large part because it didn't produce lower per-passenger costs than multiple smaller aircraft on the same route. More importantly the hub-and-spoke model isn't necessarily cheaper than direct flights, since a connecting passenger incurs additional costs (extra mileage flown, meaning extra fuel burn, extra employee expense, and much more fixed costs like airport fees and ground handling)
There are situations where a larger plane makes sense - the Japanese domestic flight industry experiences extreme passenger volume, and landing/takeoff slots are constrained, that it makes sense to fly larger planes.
But even that demand can be satisfied by large widebody heavies that aren't the A380, like the A350, 777, or 787.
Super-heavies like the A380 only make sense on routes where the passenger volume is so extreme, and takeoff/landing slots so constrained, that you must carry > 1000 passengers in a single slot. There are almost no route pairs like this in the world.
Going through small 5-gate airports is a dream as long as they're appropriately staffed at security, which is not just a small airport problem. Going through living nightmares like Denver makes me seriously consider sepukku.
If both flights are nonstop I'd probably pay 20% more for the smaller airport even if the flight itself is longer.
By economy of scale, larger airports should be cheaper. The reason they're not is that regional airports are heavily subsidized.
If air travel subsidies would spontaneously end tomorrow, we'd see a return to the hub- and spoke model, more A380 flights, less 737-MAX8/A320neo demand, lower air travel emissions, and better competitiveness for trains.