From CNN: “Airbus offers standing room ‘seats’ Report: Airbus in discussion with Asian airlines to offer padded backboards to have flyers stand, increasing capacity of largest jet to 853 passengers.” [original story]
Here’s an interesting idea from our European friends: take a plane that will hold 500+ people seated, and install them all in a standing orientation instead. This would increase capacity to about 850 passengers. Fantastic. The only problem? Such standing arrangements could only be done on “short-haul flights like an island-hopping route in Japan”. The Airbus A380 is a super jumbo jet designed for carrying lots of stuff a long ways – not for short-haul routes.
Like Boeing’s 747 series, Airbus plans to use its newest jet to handle large passenger and cargo loads on inter-continental routes. You don’t see many 747s flying from Atlanta to Tallahassee – it’s overkill, and inefficient. Large planes take a lot more energy (ie fuel) to get into the air than small planes, so using them on short-haul routes is not efficient. An airline would be better-off flying a pair of 757s than one 747 generally for short distances (besides the fact that using more smaller planes allows greater schedule flexibility).
On those London-Tokyo routes, sure using a big plane makes sense – they have the range, and can carry a lot. But I wouldn’t want to have to ‘stand’ for 14 hours.
I think Airbus is grasping at straws in trying to find uses for the new jet.