The Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 can both seat up to ~350 passengers, which is not hugely different from the 350-450 on a longhaul 747, but is much more efficient since they're twin-engine instead of quad. (And yes, you can cram in well over 500 pax into a 747 if you use an tight economy-only config, but few airlines do.)
The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, even though it's almost entirely served by "small" 737/A320s: https://www.ausbt.com.au/sydney-melbourne-is-now-the-world-s...
There are still A380s flying, but they only make sense on those fairly rare routes where you've got massive volume and tight slot restrictions. London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do.
The overall trend in aviation is point-to-point routes and frequent flights on smaller planes. Just today it was announced that Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route, even though it's almost entirely served by "small" 737/A320s: https://www.ausbt.com.au/sydney-melbourne-is-now-the-world-s...
There are still A380s flying, but they only make sense on those fairly rare routes where you've got massive volume and tight slot restrictions. London-Singapore/Dubai-Sydney works, not a whole lot of other routes do.