The biggest impact of the 747 vis-a-vis the smaller DC-8/707/Convair 880 planes was that it dramatically lowered the price of tickets, allowing a whole new generation of people to fly. The A380 will do much the same for countries like India and China, I imagine.

If EADS really thought the 7E7 was a pipe-dream, they would not be building the A350, period, much less crash-building it to get it out within two years of the 7E7 and within four years of the A380.

Fuel prices are only going to go up, and a more efficient plane is what is going to be needed to keep fares at a level "the common man" can afford. The A380's efficiency is excellent, but you can't send an A380 to every airport.

All the A330s, A340s, 757s, and 767s are going to need to be replaced over the next 20 years, and the A380 isn't the plane to replace them. The 7E7 will be the most efficient airliner around, and there will be a market for it.

So you will have hundreds of A380s shuttling passengers between the world's main hubs, then hundreds pf 7E7s moving them from those hubs to secondary airports, as well as directly connecting some secondary airports that don't have the traffic patterns to need an A380.