{"id":141,"date":"2006-08-12T12:47:25","date_gmt":"2006-08-12T19:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2006\/08\/12\/a380-size-implications\/"},"modified":"2006-08-12T12:47:25","modified_gmt":"2006-08-12T19:47:25","slug":"a380-size-implications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2006\/08\/a380-size-implications\/","title":{"rendered":"A380<\/span> Size Implications"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been a bit con\u00adcerned about the idea of fly\u00ading in one of the Air\u00adbus A380<\/span> jets (assum\u00ading they ever actu\u00adally deliv\u00ader one to an air\u00adline I fly on, that is). I haven\u2019t been con\u00adcerned about the safety of the big plane, but rather the logist\u00adics and com\u00adfort. Although, with the latest ter\u00adror\u00adist scares, I\u2019m begin\u00adning to won\u00adder about the safety of fly\u00ading on these big planes.<\/p>\n

Although in the\u00adory a double-deck\u00ader plane has room for a fit\u00adness centre, spa, and cock\u00adtail lounge, most air\u00adlines will take the oppor\u00adtun\u00adity to cram as many pas\u00adsen\u00adgers in as they can. How many that is will depend on the air\u00adline, just the same as it does today for oth\u00ader planes. <\/p>\n

So, what does a plane hold\u00ading 550 people imply? It implies the same prob\u00adlems as with a Boe\u00ading 747 that holds around 450 people, only more so. Let\u2019s assume the air\u00adlines in gen\u00ader\u00adal keep the same seat pitch, seat widths, and legroom as for the 747 or Air\u00adbus A340<\/span>, so the com\u00adfort level on board is roughly the same. Then there are two sets of prob\u00adlems I see. One is the logist\u00adic\u00adal one of cop\u00ading with get\u00adting that many people on and off the plane, and the oth\u00ader pre- and post-flight hand\u00adling. Board\u00ading time and dis\u00adem\u00adbark\u00adment time will depend on wheth\u00ader air\u00adports have the mul\u00adtiple jet\u00adways to ser\u00advice the mul\u00adtiple doors; some already do for the 747 but it\u2019s a good ques\u00adtion as to how many air\u00adports will make the invest\u00adment early on or wheth\u00ader they\u2019ll wait until there are lots of A380<\/span> planes fly\u00ading to incur the cost. Bag\u00adgage hand\u00adling and cus\u00adtoms and immig\u00adra\u00adtion form\u00adal\u00adit\u00adies are already pain points when 747 planes from mul\u00adtiple des\u00adtin\u00ada\u00adtions land close togeth\u00ader; they will likely get worse with the big\u00adger planes as they\u2019re cost centres for air\u00adports, not rev\u00aden\u00adue generators.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the secur\u00adity angle. Will the big\u00adger planes be big\u00adger tar\u00adgets for ter\u00adror\u00adists? They\u2019re not that<\/em> much big\u00adger than a 747, but it seems likely to me that under the \u201cmax\u00adim\u00adum bang\u201d the\u00adory, ter\u00adror\u00adists would aim for the largest num\u00adber of people they can get at once. To min\u00adim\u00adise this danger, secur\u00adity checks at the gate are likely, which will fur\u00adther increase the board\u00ading time, assum\u00ading that some amount of cab\u00adin bag\u00adgage con\u00adtain\u00ading books, knit\u00adting etc will be allowed on board to try to keep the pas\u00adsen\u00adger bore\u00addom level reas\u00adon\u00adable. As an aside, if the pas\u00adsen\u00adgers are not going to be allowed to bring along means of enter\u00adtain\u00ading them\u00adselves, and the air\u00adlines aren\u2019t going to widely imple\u00adment indi\u00advidu\u00adal in-flight video sys\u00adtems, I hope the flight attend\u00adants are pre\u00adpared to cope with more cases of air rage.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the answer? Apart from avoid\u00ading travel com\u00adpletely, that is, which isn\u2019t always pos\u00adsible. Avoid\u00ading large hubs isn\u2019t pos\u00adsible for many trans-ocean\u00adic jour\u00adneys, avoid\u00ading the large planes for these jour\u00adneys also won\u2019t be pos\u00adsible in many cases. It looks like the cost of air travel is just going to increase, in money, time, and irrit\u00ada\u00adtion. The biggest win\u00adners are prob\u00adably going to be the phar\u00adma\u00adceut\u00adic\u00adal com\u00adpan\u00adies that make the rem\u00aded\u00adies to help pas\u00adsen\u00adgers sleep, or to calm them down. I can just see it now, flight attend\u00adants ask\u00ading \u201cWould you like some melaton\u00adin with your ginger ale to help you sleep?\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been a bit con\u00adcerned about the idea of fly\u00ading in one of the Air\u00adbus A380<\/span> jets (assum\u00ading they ever actu\u00adally deliv\u00ader one to an air\u00adline I fly on, that is). I haven\u2019t been con\u00adcerned about the safety of the big plane, but rather the logist\u00adics and com\u00adfort. Although, with the latest ter\u00adror\u00adist scares, I\u2019m \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cA380<\/span> Size Implications\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}