[Maritime Q-Scout]

I always looked at the 787 vs A380 as betting on different things.

Airbus bet that the industry would continue as it had since the birth of the jet age. A spoke and hub model. Passengers do the short hop from Boston, Washington, Hartford, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc to New York. Then from New York hop on an A380 and skip across the pond to London.

Boeing put their money on the industry changing and passengers opting for direct routes on smaller aircraft. Thus eliminating the hop to New York and simply flying the smaller jet from Boston, Washington, Hartford, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc direct to London.

Would the smaller jets make up for the increased gate fees, bigger fleets, more staff, and increased overall fuel burn?

Turns out yes. The industry went long and thin routes as opposed to hub and spoke. The market chose the 787 over the A380 (which also needed airports to retrofit themselves for it).

I haven't flown on one (probably never will) but I loved the A380.

I am surprised that it never caught on in India or China where I would think domestically it would fair quite well. Perhaps India doesn't have the middle class to support air travel on a large scale, and China's rail system might be enough to discourage the A380 (I don't know).

Regardless, I don't think more efficient engines would have done the trick.

Sure they'd be profitable at a lower capacity, but that's not how airlines operate. Airlines like to run at max capacity, and tend to put planes that fill moreso than larger planes that don't even if the operation matrix is there. Better off filling a 787 than having 80-90 seats (or whatever) empty. Flying an empty plane doesn't instill confidence (kind of like how no one likes to eat in an empty restaurant).

The versatility of the 787 vs A380 is really the killer, not the engines. The 787 can fly into YHZ, YEG, YWG, YQB, YQM, etc whereas the A380 can only fly into YYZ, YUL and YVR... can YYC handle it?

It was just too big. It's like saying Houston to San Diego would get more Post-Panamax ships on that route if the ships had more efficient engines. Well... no, that's not really the problem there. Demand and inability to cross the Canal are bigger issues than engine efficiency.