Originally Posted by
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?
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.
Originally Posted by
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.
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.