tom911

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...w-cost-markets

Airbus says they can reconfigure these with 800 seats for a low cost carrier. Just not sure I'd want to be on board a flight with that dense a configuration (let alone the lines for the bathroom).

SeriouslyLost

I've said it before on another thread here (to which some replied that it would never work!) that selling them into the Chinese and Indian markets for medium haul routes or specific high volume periodic routes (Haj, anyone?) would be ideal at least in theory. Interesting to see that Airbus has done the actual numbers and come to the same conclusion.

Configure them for 700-800 should not reduce seat space below where it already is in economy (the extra seats simply fill the space currently taken by J and F after all) and also involves upping the number of toilets, obviously.

tom911

I have to admit a concern about airline accidents, though, when you have that many passengers on board. Would an A380 with 800 passengers be as easily evacuated on the Hudson compared to a smaller Airbus, or, God forbid, how would we react to an accident with 800 lives lost?

MSPeconomist

From the beginning, I've wondered about emergency facilities at and near airports handling the A380. Would there be enough medical care available if there were an accident or at least good expertise to make effective use of available hospitals and personnel?

If used A380s will be available cheap, maybe DL will buy some if they're now considered to be proven aircraft. <joke based on DL's stated aircraft preferences>

DenverBrian

How would we react to a cruise ship sinking in the middle of the ocean with 3,000 lives lost?

I don't think the extension of passenger jet capacity to 800 will be hindered by hypothetical bad news scenarios.

tom911

If you look at something like the Titanic, which had a death toll of over 1,500, it's still talked about to this day, and it's been over 100 years since it sank. I would not want to be the operating carrier of an airline that loses 800 souls on board. The fact is that aircraft do crash, and in some cases the reasons are not clearly known.

DenverBrian

So what's your magic number to allow a single plane to carry passengers without going into this oddball panic mode?

750?

650?

550?

532, plus no more than 8 infants?

monahos

I wouldn't count on it. I once compared passengers-to-toilet ratio in long-haul planes, and found numbers to be highly variable:
- 3:1 (CX) to 8:1 (LX) in F
- 12:1 (OZ) to 23:1 (LX) in C
- 35:1 (OZ) to 44:1 (KL) in Y
- ~60:1 on LCC's such as AirAsia X

It seems:
- premium Asian carriers take their passengers' comfort most seriously (CX, SQ, etc. are close behind OZ)
- Europeans are expected to hold it longer than the rest of the world
- US carriers are somewhere in between
- consider it lucky long-haul LCC's charge for drinks, otherwise such ratios would result in quite a few mishaps!

I recall ANA once advised their domestic passengers to answer nature's call before their flights (~71:1 on those high-density 773...), for everyone's comfort and the airline's benefit.

A typical 380's ~18 toilets would yield a 44:1 ratio with 800 seats, obviously too high for a LCC. I would fully expect toilets to be removed from such configurations.

chx1975

look at that astonishing number of people! That's an ideal evacuation of 873 people. There are people helping on the ground, noone has luggage they want to gather, everyone is able bodied.... can't even imagine how it'd go with 7-800 people and the plane on fire. That's a scary, scary thought.

DenverBrian

Um, it's a scary, scary thought when 150 people need to evacuate a 737.

It was quite scary when the Asiana 777 crashed on landing at SFO and 300 people had to evacuate that plane. Therefore, should we limit 777 passengers to some amount that will make you less scared?

JDiver

Malaysia Airlines already has some LON miles / low TMOH 380s ready to go, but I dont see strong interest.

This could change, imo.

As to incidents, the reaction to the two recent MHN losses, Air India and Pan Am terror bombings, and the horrendous 1977 collision of PAA and KLM 747s in Tenerife should give one a fair idea of how media and people on the ground would react.

The capability of huge losses has been offset by safety advances, but it has been demonstrated to safety regulators a 380 can be evacuated within established limits. Let's hope we never find out.

relangford

I think that Malaysia's A380s are nearing their C checks, so I would guess little interest unless they give them away. I thought I heard something that a Russian group was considering more than 800 passengers. Medium-haul Asia routes might make sense for increased capacity A380s, to keep them flying a little longer.

pseudoswede

So if SQ, MH, and EK start to retire/return their older A380s, what will they replace them with? More A380s? Something else?

lhgreengrd1

On a positive note, an A380 that ditched on the Hudson could probably come to rest on the bottom, and folks could just stand around in the top floor, above the water line, awaiting their rescue to arrive.

Assuming, of course, that no whale swam by and attempted to mate with the stricken plane in the intervening timeframe.

Kagehitokiri

its not that much higher than current maximum...

number of seats is what A380 can offer, but did not market that originally