As they get further down the production road, it looks like Airbus will get closer to the originally intended structure weight for the A-380.

According to Airbus and Emirates Airlines, it should add about 13 hours more endurance, and allow flights from their home base to SFO and LAX.

Additionally, Emirates is looking at pulling the retail catalogues out of the seats (!), and replacing them with a interactive channel on inflight entertainment system, which could save nearly a ton.

I think that this may make the aircraft far more competitive vs. the 747-8.