Would Qantas ever consider the A380 even IF!

SQ's are the next biggest order(!) with just 24 (and also the next biggest operator with 19 A380s in the air to EK's 58). EK are, without doubt, the biggest A380 customer by a country mile.

I agree in theory but building airliners has long been a collaborative process. The B727 was made to satisfy the requirements of the 3 main US carrieris at the time. If Airbus can turn the demand from a single client into a profitable outcome, then you'd assume it would go for it. Can only imagine the plethora of funding support for development and tax concessions within the contributing Airbus Industrie countires. 

Given a NEO is a enhancement of an existing aircraft rather than a start from scratch development, it's less of an issue in my view (and it also sets the X number to recoupment lower because less R&D is involved). My view is it's more about comparative profit than profit or loss, it's easy profit to sell the existing A380 although apart from EK there isn't much demand for future A380 sales (the trend, other than EK, has moved to late release 2 engine aircraft for their superior fuel efficiency - a two engine aircraft have a natural advantage over four engine aircraft for fuel burn).

A stretched A380! That might be biting off more than EK can chew. A Neo makes sense because it lowers EK's operational costs, but I would have thought the risk of empty seats on a stretched version would be on all but the most capacity/slot constrained ports.

The Melbourne-Sydney route is one of the world's busiest, but capacity wise it isn't all that huge. Still the future may be interesting.

Hopefully a 10-13% overall cost reduction will make airlines rethink a neo variant overtime

I fear Airbus has over-egg the pudding with its emphasis on the hub-spoke model. There are certainly limits to this model.

Sorry what do you mean? I'm not familiar with those phrases?

Hub and spoke rather than point to point.

A380s (and other large planes) are more suited to the former, smaller jets to the latter.

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-hub-and-spoke-model.htm

Christopher,

It means exaggerating or emphasising too much.

ok thanks

Which has married them to hub and spoke operators, hence the shunning from american operators.