Airbus' New A380 Super Liner

Airbus recently rolled out its A380, the largest airliner ever built. The double-decker passenger plane has two passenger decks connected by a grand staircase near the front and a small set of steps in the aft portion. Built to fly distances of 10,000 miles or more, it has been designed to carry the largest passenger load of any previous jet.

The A380 has been the subject of a lot of hype - the largest, longest range, smoothest flying, etc. Air France has put it on a number of its international routes. Having just flown the Johannesburg to Paris roundtrip (10 plus hours each way), I have to say that a lot of the hype is just that - hype.

Unless you're well-heeled and can afford the price of a first-class or business-class ticket, you might well be advised to avoid this plane. Economy-class, at least on Air France's Johannesburg-Paris route, is steerage of the worst kind. While the premium class compartments are spacious and quite luxurious, the ten-across seating (three-four-three) in economy is better suited for midgets than normal sized people.

I'm just a shade under six feet tall, mostly legs, and weigh in at 203 pounds, so I am probably in what one would call the normal demographics for a Western male - not too big, but not too small. The economy seats on the A380 barely - just barely - accommodate me, but on a ten-hour flight, you feel the pinch of sitting in a seat that leaves no room at either side. Airbus and Air France claim that there's lots of leg room, but with the back of the seat in front of me pressed against my knees even before the passenger reclined, I didn't notice it. I had to remove the Air France in-flight magazine to get some relief, and when the seat in front was reclined, splay my legs outward to avoid having the circulation cut off.

If you aren't in an aisle or exit row seat, forget about having room to move your arms about, unless you don't mind inconveniencing your fellow passengers. On the return flight from Paris, I was stuck in a center seat, and it took my shoulder a week to recover from the pain of being basically immobilized for ten hours.

In all fairness, the plane does perform as smoothly as Airbus claims. Take off and landing is smooth, and it seems quieter than other models. In-flight entertainment, even in economy, is not bad, with individual video units and a fairly good selection of movies, TV shows and games to choose from. Of course, with the uncomfortable seating, you need the entertainment to distract you.

It might not seem fair to judge a plane from just two flights, but I fly an average of 150,000 miles a year, and this was without a doubt the worse two flights I've been on since the early 1980s flying old Russian jetliners in northeast China. Hype notwithstanding, with the commercial airlines' tendency to cram as many seats into economy class as possible, the A380 is the largest flying sardine can in history.

References:

http://www.airbus.com/en/myairbus/a380_wow/

http://www.airfrance.co.uk/GB/en/local/guidevoyageur/destination/A380.htm

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/chasingthesun/planes/a380.html