ren0312

Which will be the more uncomfortable layout? I have riden on a 10 seater 777 although the seat pitch was 33 inches, and it was not too bad, I personally felt that even 31 inches was still bearable on that plane.

Efrem

The fuselage of an A380 is 3'1" wider than that of a 777. All things being equal, that allows for slightly wider seats and/or aisles despite having one more seat in each row. However, all things are not necessarily equal. A lot depends on how an airline chooses to configure its economy cabin. Which airline(s) are you thinking of here?

lhrsfo

The pitch has nothing to do with the number of seats across - which affects seat and aisle width. If you and your seatmates are tall and skinny, you will want maximum pitch and not care so much about width (except that there are more people to climb over when going to the loo). Conversely, if you or your seatmates are short and rotund, then you'd better look for 9 across on the 777.

ren0312

Philippine Airlines is looking at the A350, but they owned 747s before so if the high density A380s with NEO comes around, they may look into it, I am just wondering what it may be like. I am 5'7 so 31 inch seat pitch is not much of a problem.

celle

I've flown Emirates and Qantas A-380s and both those airlines have 10 seats across in economy, in a 3-4-3 configuration. I found both comfortable, with adequate pitch and width.

Which airlines fly 11 across in economy?

FN-GM

At the moment nobody, however its something thats been floating around. I believe EK are interested.

celle

Just doing the maths here; Currently, Emirates A-380 economy seats have a width of 18" and a pitch of 32-34".

To accommodate 11 across would mean reducing the seat width to approximately 16'5", plus narrowing both aisles. (10 seats reduced by 1.5" each = 15", plus approx 2" reduction in each aisle width = 4", giving a total of 19", allowing for small arm rests.)

Not acceptable for me!

shuigao

That would be worse than short haul budget carriers

ren0312

11 seater A380s would still be 18 inches across per seat.

http://aviationweek.com/commercial-a...0-seating-2017

Alex71

The problem is that the side wall on the lower deck of the A380 already curves in as it is, making the window seat less comfortable. Adding another seat by taking the space away from underneath the window seat will make it even worse.

nkedel

11-across A380 remains a hypothetical, and would be expected to hit on EK first since they're the ones who asked for it from Airbus. It sounds bloody miserable to be in that middle-of-5 seat!

On the current configs, I end up picking them like this:
Of the comfortable set:
2-4-3 787 > 2-4-2 Airbus > 2-5-2 777 > 3-4-3 A380 > 3-3-3 777
Of the too-narrow-seat-set, to avoid if I can: 2-3-2 767 > (hypothetically 3-3-3 787) > 3-4-3 747 > 3-4-3 777

...although it's a bit of a silly comparison on the airlines I fly as I rarely have more than one option on the same routes on the alliance I fly, and I'm rarely in a position to pick the routing purely by my aircraft choice.

I'd expect the 3-5-3 A380 to slot in right around the 787 in the second group -- better than the others in width, but not a lot better.

I think there had been some discussion of a new cabin wall with the EK request, but I couldn't confirm that. From experience in a window seat in coach on the QF (10-across) A380 and quite a few 747s, they seem to curve less than the smaller widebodies.

sbm12

But it does affect overall comfort and personal space. More pitch helps - to an extent - limited width feel better.

Sure, but it is a BS measurement. They are measuring inside the arm rests and making the arm rests narrower to maintain that dimension. You get less space but the measurement standard is tweaked to make it work in the math. Southwest is doing the same thing with its new 737 seats (which will actually be on a plane relatively soon).

The A380 11-abreast cabin mockup was on display at the AIX conference in Hamburg earlier this year. I sat in the seats and explored it in detail. The window seat will be mostly miserable thanks to the curve of the side wall, among other things.

n.b. The link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

nkedel

Thanks for posting the details... as someone who prefers windows the amount of curvature by the legs at the window looks bloody awful (although at least it is still curving out higher up), and the narrower armrests to claim a wider seat seems like a sad joke as well. Seatpan width isn't an entirely useless measurement but I wish airlines would measure width by center-to-center (more like pitch) as it's what's representative of actual shoulder room.

celle

So this article claims, but it doesn't explain how.
Given a fixed aircraft width, fitting an extra seat into each row can only be done at the expense of narrowing either seats or aisles, or both.

I doubt that sufficient room for an extra seat could be obtained by making the armrests any thinner.

nkedel

If you look at message 13 above, while it doesn't let you do that, it does let Airbus pretend the seats aren't actually getting narrower.