Airbus A380s Lost Future - What Happened To The Never Built A380 Variants?

Airbus had big plans for the A380 plane... what happened to the future versions?

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0:00 A380 Introduction
0:41 Base Model A380-800
1:35 A380F
3:17 Private A380
4:34 A380-900
5:01 A380-1000
5:32 A380neo
6:30 A380plus
7:35 Special Message To You

Back in the 90s, Airbus was looking for a new aircraft design for a market of hub to hub travel. They saw that millions of passengers needed to fly between continents and that major hub airports like New York and Heathrow couldn't land more planes per day. So why not go bigger?

The A380 was created to fill this market. Its original proposed configuration was 555 passengers in a three-classes, or if any airline so chose, it could carry 853 passengers in a single-class economy configuration. The design range for the A380−800 model is 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km); capable of flying from Hong Kong to New York or from Sydney to Istanbul non-stop.

The A380 freighter would have had the most extensive internal square space of any flying cargo aircraft, even more than Boeing 747-8F and only outmatched by the single Antonov An-225 Mriya in service. The A380F would be capable of transporting a 150 t (330,000 lb) maximum payload over a 5,600 nautical miles (10,400 km) range.

There was a flaw with the A380F design because the aircraft had a higher empty weight than the Boeing 747, as in without cargo it was heavier, it could carry less. Cargo operators would have run out of engine lifting power before they ran out of space onboard. And that second level's structure wasn't really designed for heavy materials nor did cargo operators have a way to reach the upper level with current ground vehicles.

Ultimately, delays to the A380 passenger program pushed back the A380F, and the 27 orders for the freighter with Emirates, FedEx, ILFC, and UPS were canceled.

Airbus would not give up on the concept and would patent a combi version of the A380 in 2015. This version would offer the flexibility of carrying both passengers and cargo, along with being rapidly reconfigurable, to expand or contract the cargo area and passenger area as needed for a given flight.

There was also a proposed private version of the A380 that was in pre-production and would have been out of this world. It featured a spiral staircase wrapping around a glass lift to reach all three levels, and that also went outside the plane when on the tarmac. It had a garage for two luxury cars, a Turkish bath lined with marble, 20 VIP suites, five master cabins with bathrooms attached, and a concert hall. The plane would have been able to transport 50 passengers to a range of 17,500 km (9,400 nautical miles).

With a price tag of £300 million ($371 million), it actually did have one order in 2007, but for unknown reasons, the plane was shifted the commercial program and given a passenger fitout instead.

With the A380 you might have noticed that the wing seems a little bigger than necessary. This is because the wing of the A380 was designed in mind for future bigger versions of the airframe - an Airbus A380-900.

Compared to the Airbus A380-800, -900 would have had a seating capacity for 650 passengers in standard configuration and for approximately 900 passengers in an economy-only configuration. Airlines interested in this aircraft included Emirates, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay Pacific, Air France, KLM and Lufthansa.

There were also rumors that Airbus wanted to go bigger and was considering a project called the Airbus A380 stretch, or now known as the A380-1000. It would have carried 1000 passengers in all-economy.

Airbus decided to present a new engine option version of the A380, the A380 neo.
For an airline like Emirates, who operated an entire fleet of Airbus A380 aircraft, these upgrades would have been welcome and had a significant impact on its bottom line.

In 2017, Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier confirmed that Airbus would not launch an A380neo, stating, "...there is no business case to do that, this is absolutely clear."

The last version of the A380 proposed by Airbus was A380plus, presented to the world at the 2017 Paris Air Show. The A380 plus would offer 13% lower costs per seat with special split scimitar winglets and provide a trade for 50 more seats, or 200 more nautical miles. Its maintenance cycle would be stretched to allow six more days of flying per year, and improvements from the A350 program would have been brought in to reduce weight.

At the end of the day, the A380 never truly realized its dream. Had it been released in the 80s or 90s, perhaps it would hold a place in our skies like the Boeing 747, but today the plane is being scrapped and even the 2nd hand market doesn't exist - with plans of what could have been only existing on paper.

Which aircraft was your favorite in this list? Let me know down in the comments, and if you liked this video today then leave a like and subscribe for more never built aircraft.

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