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Comment by distant_hat | Hacker News Reader

I've flown the A380 with Emirates a bunch of times in economy and it was quite nice. Much more quieter and a lot more space. They also gave bassinet seats for my infant which made a huge difference on a 10 hour flight.

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That is my experience too. With emirates I can actually sit in an economy seat in a 380 without destroying my knees (looking at you Lufthansa, you can do it too in you 380s). A trip to Tokyo recently I did the first stretch in a 380 and the second in a 777 and the 777 was horrible compared to the 380: less seat space (I think about 1 to a bit less than 2 inches), less overall room. Though still more room than most airlines offer.

Indeed, my only A380 experience was with Emirates and I assumed that they were all set up in the same way. I tend to fly Virgin Atlantic long haul and will at least upgrade to their premium (business) class, but economy on an Emirates A380 is comparable IME and to be honest I doubt I'd waste money paying to upgrade if I flew with them again.

VS’s Premium is a Premium Economy product, not a Business class product — that’s their Upper Class. Not looking to be pedantic, but it’s priced as Premium Economy, shows up on OTAs as PE, and is virtually identical to any other PE.

I'm doing London -> New Zealand on an A380 with Emirates next month, with a bassinet for a 14 month old infant.

We're a bit worried that he may end up being too big for it. That, and keeping them entertained for two long flights.

14-months may be pushing it -- they have a stated weight and height limit but in practice it depends if your steward cares or not. Over weight/height isn't going to break the bassinet, we had ours with the legs hanging over the edge. Some stewards though whenever there is turbulence will ask you to take your baby out so you can cover them with a seat-belt. When they are sleeping this is not ideal. On a long flight, this can happen a lot (the seat-belt light turns on, even if you barely feel a bump from turbulence afterwards). We ended up saying "ok, sure" when they come and ask, and then when they walk off we just wouldn't do anything. All in all, I found travelling with an infant pretty OK. Depending on what time your flights are, they might sleep a good 8 hours in the bassinet!

Ours was 14 months when we flew and one flight attendant complained about it but the rest didn't seem to care. We were doing London-Dubai.

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