Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

What a shame. The best flying experience I've ever had was coach on an A380 from SFO to Frankfurt. It was the only time I arrived feeling awake and fresh. The air felt cleaner, the lighting was great, and it was so smooth.

I get why it isn't popular, but it's just too bad. I really liked flying on one.

View on HN

This sort of anecdata always crops up on airline threads. Flight experience can vary pretty wildly by airline, even on the same type of plane, since the interior layout and amenities are up to the airline, and not the plane manufacturer.

The best long haul experience I've had in recent years was on a Singapore Airlines A380. The worst one in the same timeframe was on a British Airways A380. Both times economy class.

I've been on a 787 on a few different carriers and they've all been pretty nice.

They're objectively much quieter in the cabin than the vast majority of airliners. That was the huge difference for me at least.

I worked at Airbus while the A380 was being developed, I still remember fondly seeing the test flights over our office and looking at it in awe. Then a while later I got to fly in one and it is indeed the best and most modern plane I've been in.

I recently flew a 787 for first time and felt it provided a similar spacious experience to A380. Ceiling space and the large windows seems to help that experience.

I'd still hate to see jumbo jets (specially A380) to disappear.

Both the A380 and 787 have higher internal cabin pressures (equivalent of 6000ft). All other planes operate at lower pressure. Anything above 6000ft leads to altitude sickness for those who live at ~0ft.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2017/...

You forgot the A350, which is also mentioned in the article.

This is really good marketing but not really true. A recent study of pressurization found that 747s tend to be operated at lower pressurization the a380s (which are typically run a bit higher then their rates). Almost 1k feet IIRC.

What makes a huge huge difference is humidity. I get off a Denver to narita 787 feeling like it was a long Colorado to California flight, whereas a SFO to Narita flight on a 380 or 747 wrecks me.

Given Denver's altitude of ~5000', the smaller take-off pressurization effect may be a (small?) factor. You're almost acclimatized to cabin pressure already.

Denver's altitude also means a lower maximum takeoff weight. Perhaps less cargo/passengers = faster luggage / more empty seats?

The 787 air quality is better for two reasons: it has a higher humidity and it contains less VOCs. The reason for both of these factors is that the 787 is designed to take cabin air directly from the atmosphere rather than from a compressor bleed valve as in every other aircraft.

This was a radical design decision for Boeing because bleed air usually has three key functions: it is hot enough to cause toxic ozone gas to decompose, it is at high pressure so can pressurise the cabin and it is hot so it can heat the cabin. Without bleed air Boeing had to do all these things with new components, they have an ozone filter/catalyst, an electrical compressor and a RAM heat exchanger to heat up the air (basically slows down the air increasing its temperature). The system is more complex but according to Boeing uses less energy [1] and makes servicing the engines easier.

For passengers, external air contains more moisture than the bleed air (air becomes less humid if it is compressed and heated) so the inlet air humidity is around 7% compared to 2% on other planes. But this is still less than the humidity in a typical cabin which is about 10 to 20%. Some of this is residual moisture that is recirculated but most is from passenger respiration and transpiration [2]. Even so the higher inlet humidity coming in can significantly slow down the loss of moisture over a long flight. In addition VOCs and other bleed air contaminants are minimised [3] which Boeing claims means we feel better after a long flight.

[1] http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4...

[2] http://webserver.dmt.upm.es/~isidoro/tc3/Aircraft%20ECS.pdf

[3] https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oam...

Try a 787 sometime, you'll have a similar experience.

It has everything to do with being a new plane with new technologies (higher air pressure, better lighting, newer seats, etc.). Nothing specific to the A380.

Higher humidity too

> It has everything to do with being a new plane with new technologies

That's true, and I still am looking for a chance to get on a 787.

Although I don't think anything can replicate the smoothness of the A380, it's just so big.

There’s another factor to consider that one doesn’t usually think about, emergency evacuation. Watch this video [0] which many in the industry think was rigged to even get this number and tell me which plane you’d rather be on.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_gqWeJGwV_U

this so much. same connection.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com