A New Mission for an Ugly Duckling?

The Airbus A380 is an enormous airplane. Capable of carrying up to 700 passengers in a dense seating configuration, 500 is a more typical number. And they are going begging. Boeing bet that airlines wanted smaller planes to fly nonstop between multiple international destinations rather than aggregating passengers at a few world hubs like London, Paris, Tokyo or New York. The 787 was the result and it's a home run. The A380 was Airbus's bet on the aggregation strategy and they lost. What to do now with all the big ugly duckling A380s that are collecting dust?

How about military transports and freighters? The U.S. is always short of lift capacity and there are times that troops and supplies absolutely, positively have to be there overnight. A fleet of A380s could help solve that problem. C-17s and C-5s could move the freight and the A380s the people. They are going for a song right now because no airlines want them - even the ones that have them are looking to dump them. It is definitely a buyer's market and getting a needed aircraft at bargain basement prices would be a refreshing change from the Pentagon's usual procurement practices. A win for the military and for the taxpayers - what a novel idea!

crankyflier.com/2016/11/29/nobody-wants-the-a380-and-thats-breeding-creativity/