Originally Posted by
ClubflyerLondon
While inevitable given the economics of the A380 vs 787/A350 i echo the comments of this outcome as rather sad. the A380 is my favorite aircraft in the BA fleet
Am sure BA will keep their 12 frames for quite a few years. I think Airbus felt that 744s would pretty much be replaced 1:1 with the A380, certainly with the major 744 operators of BA, SQ, QF, LH, AF, KL, CX etc. Instead BA have replaced only about 20% of their 744 fleet with the 380 and the rest it seems will be a mixture of A35K / 787-10 and a small sub-fleet of 777W.
I have always wondered if EK was a blessing in disguise for the A380 - on the one hand they have taken >100 frames but would more total have been sold to the traditional big 744 operators mentioned above if EK had not decimated their traditional Europe to Middle East, Asia and Australia markets by siphoning everything through DXB. One can only wonder about this....