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Comment by ra7 | Hacker News Reader

A380 is the smoothest and quietest aircraft I've flown in, and those things really make a difference if you're flying 16 hours from SFO to DXB.

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I just did this flight last Friday. 16-odd hours, with a slight delay, and I got off the plane without the usual chapped lips and dry throat. To add to what others have said, the 380 has the quietest take off and landing. It’s an engineering marvel.

In contrast, while the 787 is good, the cabin is louder and the air quality isn’t on par with the 380. Even if this is deemed a failure, the 380 spurred the industry to do more, made Boeing do more for the 787, and eventually led to the development of the A-350 which is my favorite plane to fly right now.

All in all, the 380 gave Airbus swagger and the license to seriously compete with Boeing. Costs be damned.

Update: light punctuation edits

I've read a few posts on here about people getting off their A380 flights feeling better sans dry throats, chapped lips, etc. I find that a bit odd, as the A380 still uses bleed air systems, unlike the A350 and 787 which use filtered air. All other factors being equal, there should be no difference between air quality on a 777 and A380. Perhaps I'm missing something?

I actually feel the difference most for B787, less exhausted and not as dehydrated after 8+ hour flights. A reason for me to book B787 wherever possible. I believe the A350 should be similar but wasn't able to test it yet on long-haul.

A380 is relatively quiet but air quality isn't really comparable with the Dreamliner.

Can airplanes have a different cabin pressure? If so, maybe A380 has it higher, and in theory that should help to avoid dehydration.

Yes, newer aircraft have a lower cabin “altitude”. They also have higher humidity since there are more compositie materials and less risk of rust.

All bleed systems are filtered. The comparison you meant to make is between bleed air and air delivered by electric compressors, as on the 787.

The A350 & A380 (and all current Airbus airliners) use bleed air from the engines, just like all other airliners bar the 787.

The reason that people feel better after long flights on more modern aircraft like the A380, A350 and 787 than they do on older aircraft is due to lower cabin altitude and thus higher cabin humidity, which is largely down to the use of more composites in the construction, which can handle the higher humidity without corrosion problems. This better cabin environment is possible with bleed air or with electric compressors.

As an aside, the 787 also offers some protection from "fume events" (leakage of combustion byproducts or oil fumes from the engine into the cabin) since it doesn't use bleed air. However, there's still oil in the electric compressors so there's still some (much diminished) risk of fume events.

The likelihood of an incident like that even with a bleed air system is rather tiny, considering the air comes from the cold bypass section of the engines, and there's a redundancy in that multiple engines are available to provide it. If all your engines are emitting fumes, you have bigger problems than the air quality in the cabin (and you have oxygen masks to deal with it)

It's true that fume events are rare, but they do happen. It seems that leaking seals are one cause. If you search aviation incident databases there seem to be one or two reported fume events somewhere in the world per month on average, which is indeed a tiny incidence compared to the volume of air traffic.

There is actually quite a few fume evenths monthly, and a rather concerning report[1] from one of them.

[1] http://avherald.com/h?article=4b6eb830/0006&opt=7168

Fume events are rare as long as you define them as being above regulated threshold of contaminants in the cabin. This is fine for most people, but others (my partner included) have sensitivities to the contaminants, which trigger neurological symptoms whenever she flies, even in "safe" conditions. These days she wears a mask whenever flying and doesn't get symptoms - except the 787, where it's not necessary.

Before we worked out the issue (the risk of which really should be communicated by airlines) she was sicks for weeks after flying. And although unlikely, she once was caught in a fume event and couldn't work for months. Others on the plane were badly affected too. This is serious stuff and the 787 is great progress.

>"fume events" (leakage of combustion byproducts or oil fumes from the engine into the cabin)

is that why the cabin of airplanes smell like jet fuel for the first few minutes of rake-off?

Fume events are usually described as smelling like dirty socks or a wet dog. There was a fume event a few years ago that ended up going very badly for one of the pilots:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4b6eb830&opt=1024

The fuel smell at the beginning of the flight might just be happening because the engines and/or APU are ingesting the exhaust of the aircraft in front of you while on the taxiway, and some of that exhaust smell ends up in the bleed air that eventually enters the cabin.

I'm really curious what this is btw. I read so much about the 787 having a better cabin atmosphere but all my 787 flights where quite underwhealming and the automatically controlled window shades at least on two BA flights I was on where really frustrating because they simulated night until right the moment we were landing and then it propelled me into late afternoon sunlight conditions. I absolutely hated that sensation.

The A380 and 787 use exactly the same aircon packs, just more of them in the former case.

Here's another praise this plane, in my case LHR-LAX.

Back in 2016 I found an offer I could not stop myself from booking: NCE-LHR-LAX-HNL for 345EUR roundtrip. It was 36 hours per bound, but for 10 days in Hawaii from Europe I was ready to bear with that.

Well, that LHR-LAX leg was gonna be my longest flight ever and I was worried about my state on arrival, but it was easily the most comfortable leg of the whole trip vs A319, A321 and B777 of the other legs, even being significantly shorter.

Wow. That is quite the deal!

Wow, what's your secret method for getting such a great deal?

I have been keep an eye on Scott's Cheap Flights (https://scottscheapflights.com/), haven't seen anything so spectacular!

Found it on https://www.secretflying.com and here's a screencap: https://i.imgur.com/4MpUY0y.png

thanks for the hint!

Absolutely agree, I fly long distance a lot and really really enjoy flying in the A380, specifically due to the air quality and feeling of space it has. I usually try to pick this plane flying out of SFO so I reallu hope that this plane will be in service for a long time to come.

I have a tendency to get air sick on my first flight after not having flown in a while. Not with the A380... virtually no turbulence and that flight felt solid and smooth. Take off, landing, and everything in between. Toronto -> Dubai economy class.

Our seats were just in front of lavatory but I had absolutely zero complaints (no smell, no nothing). Did not mind the foot traffic (peaky after meals) due to location but I can see how that could bother others.

Seconded. No other aircraft I've flown in comes close, and I've flown in a lot of airplanes.

A lot of the praise for the 787 is I think the effect of a huge marketing push from Boeing.

Yeah, no idea about the economics of these planes, but flying one with Emirates to Dubai was really pleasant. The regular economy class was more like premium economy on other planes.

I've only flown in an A380 once, business class from London to Miami, but I'd agreee with this 100%. Very nice ride!

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