Oops is, yet again, an airline term

Mark Halper has a SmartPlanet article about shorter flights:

We expect a constant flow of “faster” and “more” in our technology-driven world.
So is it a sign of progress or regress that the new showpiece of Airbus’ long haul stable, the troubled A380 Dreamliner, can’t fly as far an earlier model?
Regular passengers on Singapore Airlines’ direct flights from New York City and Los Angeles to Singapore would probably answer: backward. Those two routes have reigned as the world’s longest non-stop commercial flights, but Singapore is now replacing the A340-500 aircraft that served them with the A380 (photo), necessitating a refueling stop en route.
The 9,500-mile flight from Newark, New Jersey ends after 23 November 2013 when it will travel its last regular North Pole route, averaging eighteen hours, according to Businessweek. The seventeen-hour Los Angeles daily wrapped up last Sunday. The airline had promoted the flights as saving five hours compared to connecting options.
The two routes carried only a hundred passengers each and were all business class, priced at over eight thousand dollars, there and back. Now those flush round trippers will have to hope for cushy lounges at a layover airport.
When the airline first announced the change a year ago in a press release, it cited “the absence of replacement aircraft in the Singapore Airlines fleet with sufficient range and operating economics.”
In case you’re wondering, the new king of non-stops will be Qantas Airways’ 8,600-mile Sydney-to-Dallas jaunt.
But the Singapore switch could still count as progress. The airline is returning the A340-500s to Airbus and says it’s part of a youth movement for its fleet, in which it is buying the A380s as well as the relatively lightweight A350 planes, with improved fuel efficiency, even if they can’t stay aloft as long as their predecessor could.

Rico says it's not a problem for him, as he doesn't fly to any of those places...