Singapore Airlines Won’t Extend Lease on First Airbus A380 Jet

So what are the reasons (in short)? The article is behind a paywall.

Click "web" under the article link. Click first link in Google results.

> The A380’s size has become its disadvantage as airlines prefer relatively smaller planes such as the Airbus A350 and rival Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner that can fly nonstop to their ultimate destinations, bypassing major hubs such as London Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi Airport.

(Range seems odd to me as a factor, as Wikipedia thinks the Dreamliner and the A380 have the same max range.)

Well, it appears, airlines are getting the range from smaller aircraft (A350, 787) so don't need this double decker and the secondary reason is first gen airliners have lots of kinks which get worked out in later revisions, but this being a low volume model, any excess will dampen the market for new ones. Basically, AB misread the market and the A380 turned out to be a dud.

Actually, it's the opposite, and there's more than the lazy "Government planning fails yet another time."

I'm not sure whether you know much about the commercial airlines industry, but recent deregulation has sparked a huge increase in the # of low-cost airlines, resulting in a spreading out of passenger load across airlines. Therefore, there aren't as many passengers to carry per airline as before, and A380s and B747s are no longer needed. In fact, all U.S. airlines (Delta, United, American, and smaller ones) either sold or parked all of their jumbos.

Downside: Because of the # of increase, air traffic has worsened (e.g. delays at airports) and pollution has increased very rapidly.