Originally Posted by jsgoldbe
The article is quite interesting, thanks for the link. Because the A380 may be mildly disruptive to airport operations, will the airlines flying it be saddled with additional restrictions as to the total number of landing slots they have allocated?
Well the point of the A380 is to replace 747s, 777s, and A340s at airports with slot restrictions already in place to maximize the number of passengers carriers can transit into and out of them. So I can't really see any more slots being removed from said airports when A380 operations begin in earnest.
Will SIN (or any other airport that will take the A380) have similar issues with changes to operations when an A380 is moving around? Is there any airport in the world that is actually going to be able to take this aircraft in "ideal operation", meaning it will move about like all other aircraft as well as have the three jetways Airbus requests, etc.?
Well airports expected to see heavy A380 traffic are building new multi-level terminals and widening taxiways and such. Wake turbulence from the four engines will be high, which might mean some more spacing issues on the taxiways (just like RJs don't nuzzle up to 777s right now).
Where the issues will really be down the road is when airport passenger traffic increases 50% when A380s replace 747s on a plane-for-plane basis. Hopefully, the airports will take that into consideration by expanding terminals to accomodate much larger check-in, security, and departure areas, as well as larger baggage claim and parking facilities.