[dutchyankee]

Looks Fantastic, and I cant wait to fly on it! I have avoided the A380 until now, waiting for BA!

[Bucksnet]

I know that Becky thank you. Staggered seating works because your feet need a lot less width than your body.

[CityRiskBoy]

Personally I think it would have made sense to have F and J all on the top deck with F being at the front and J following behind broken down in to smaller cabins….Would have been more exclusive and quiet away from the engines. WTP should be at the front of the lower deck followed by all of Y behind it on the lower deck. The J lay out here looks pretty cramped but maybe thats just the way the plan is drawn. Without trying to create a “class’ system, when people spend £xxxxx on a J or F seat they want that bit of exclusivity and dont want to look behind and see rows and rows of Y.

[DontTurnRight]

Emirates new A380 terminal in Dubai will allow all Premium passengers to board directly from the lounges onto the upper deck. One thing BA will not be able to do!

[VintageKrug]

…until it moves to Thames Hub!! 😉

[Shanwick1249]

There is no doubt that the EK A380 upper deck arrangement is head and shoulders over CW – and I have flown both cabins in the last month.

CW seating gets a thumbs up for being a reliable flat bed with an excellent degree of privacy. However, clambering over your neighbour (or having your neighbour clambering over you) to get in and out is a major drawback. Plus the seats are now getting old and worn so they shake and flex when leaden-footed cabin crew are clomping up and down the aisle. Also the IFE is decidely second rate and serving meals through the screen is a bit of a pantomime.

By contrast, a window seat in the EK 1+2+1 layout is heaven – with a great IFE, lots of space, your own minibar, excellent flat bed, total privacy AND an air vent because it is always too hot on board no matter who you’re flying with. Add in the bar and a great wine list and an EK A380 beats pretty much every other Business class cabin there is.

That is the level BA needs to be aiming when its 380s arrive. Sadly, it looks like BA will fall well short.

[VintageKrug]

In fact, the seats are removed from each BA aircraft, refurbished and replaced around every four years – in between that time, padding and seatcoverings will be replaced as needed.

So the time since the introduction of the product isn’t any reflection on the age of the structure of the seating itself.

I’ve never experienced “clambering” over someone; unless you have very short legs, getting out of your seat is easily accomplished without fuss.

The private air vent is something I entirely endorse, and having it on Qantas F makes a huge difference.

I did find the A380 made me a little seasick, though.

[Bucksnet]

BA does not want to move to Thames Hub VK. When you will get this fact into your head?

[Binman62]

BA does not want to move to Thames Hub……

I think that is true…..the problem is they are taking this position as the have a dominant position at LHR which is full and therefore the level of competition is limited to those already there.
If we are to have new entrant on a large scale such as SQ or CX operating to the USA or other routes then we need to have greater capacity.

without we will continue to have overpriced flights providing deteriorating levels of service from privately owned monopoly much as we had a nationalised one in the 1980’s

[Bucksnet]

Only one or maybe two airlines really need a hub in the UK. Any others can operate flights from other airports.

[SimonS1]

And the Emirates 380 terminal is about 2 months from launch. Boris Island is 30 years away at least. The first 380s will probably have been retired by then.

[BeckyBoop]

Does anyone know how an A380 stacks up against a 747 on a pound for pound basis?

It is widely anticipated that the BA A380 will run on the LHR-HKG on its first route. At the moment the LFF is quoting CW tickets at just over £3k (the same as CX) bearing in mind there is no sale and we are coming into peak season. Even if BA has higher density seating they could possibly reduce their fares considerably as a result if the running cost of an A380 is the same or cheaper than a 747.

[scott66]

I can only imagine the fares on the 380 would be more expensive (other than the piggy in the middle seat on the top deck). The dear old 747s may have higher daily operating costs, but it’s been many years since they had finance payments to make. For years to come, I imagine the 380s will be quite a burden on BA’s balance sheet.

Incidentally, how long typically do airlines finance their purchase over, any ideas?

[IanFromHKG]

Becky, I really doubt that prices will fall on the HKG route (sadly) as there simply isn’t enough capacity now. The memsahib is flying back to HKG from LHR on Tuesday (admittedly on CX rather than BA) and I have been calling for weeks trying to get an earlier flight for her – no dice. Every flight is completely full (and CX have four a day – 2 jumbos and 2 77Ws). You need to bear in mind that come March, three out of the six airlines on the route will have stopped flying within the space of a year – QANTAS (stopped in the summer), Hong Kong Airlines (ditto – admittedly not much of a contender, really, but all the same!) and Air New Zealand who are shutting the route early next year. That’s an awful lot of capacity to lose, I don’t see a switch to an A380 creating enough additional capacity to counter that, unfortunately

[AnthonyDunn]

@ SimonS1 – 21/11/2012 21:57 GMT

Simon,

I dare say that the first A380s are far from being the only things to have retired by then…

Otherwise, and not that I wish to compare a brand spanking new A380 MTOW with a dust cart but I was left wondering (having watched the YouTube of BA’s new bird arrive for its paint job in HAM) about turning circles… Does the A380, like your average suburban dust cart, have any rotation in its rear under-carriage? Just wondering.

[Author]

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