Last week marked the end of an era—a shorter-than-expected one—as Airbus finished construction on the last A380 super jumbo at its Toulouse factory, and sent it off to Hamburg to be painted up for Emirates Airways.
Emirates, the airline that believed in the A380 and bought nearly half of all the planes built, had a hand in the end; it was the airline’s decision not to order any more that prompted Airbus to throw in the towel after several years of few to no new sales.
Most airlines that owned the plane have retired them or are about to; they are moving to more efficient two-engine planes that better fit the demand for point-to-point flights over moving passengers through hubs. Even Emirates has chosen A350s and 787s for its next generation of purchases.
