All Economy 840 pax A380: Air Austral

[Justin L]

Airline Route Updates website (http://airlineroute.blogspot.com/) reports that Air Austral are getting two A380s configured to all economy to seat 840 pax and fly between Paris and St Denis de la Reunion.

Imagine boarding times (even with two aerobridges) and customs for that! Or is customs not required as St Denis de la Reunion is a French territory?

[NickN]

Hard to imagine a plane with 840 pax on it, just awesome.

[Nigel C]

Hard to imagine a plane with 840 pax on it, just awesome.

Until one goes down killing everyone on board....

[NickN]

Thats true, but who builds a plane in the expectation it will crash?

I suppose if it happens it happens and until then we consider ourselves lucky it hasn't.

[Bill S]

FWIW I flew a 747-300 for one of the French tour companies (not sure which one now ... AOL ?) and it had all but a few rows at the front set up for economy. I think we carried about 570 people. :)

[NickN]

Sorta like that 747 Domestic config, I think it was 630 economy.

[Karl M]

Correct me if im wrong, but I think a QF 747 held or holds the record for the most PAX carried during Cylone Tracy?

[Andrew P]

Correct me if im wrong, but I think a QF 747 held or holds the record for the most PAX carried during Cylone Tracy?


was for while, but not anymore

he greatest number of passengers carried by a single commercial airliner is 1,088, by an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Solomon, which began on May 24, 1991. The purpose of the operation was to evacuate Ethiopian Jews to Israel following the toppling of the Ethiopian government. The figure includes two babies born during the flight.

Banjo

[NickN]

Standing room only on that flight!!! That's amazing.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Imagine the queue to use the toilets !

I have heard it's already bad enough.

[Shameel Kumar]

I wonder what the baggage policy would be for such a routing considering it's a 5,050nm journey between CDG and RUN.

I guess if this does become reality it'll trump EK's two-class layout of 604 seats.

In all common sense though, does an airline like Air Austral really need an aircraft the size and capacity of the A380? Seems more like a political 'French Connection' sorta deal to me. I guess we should also expect Air Tahiti Nui and Air Caledonia to sign-up to a couple of A380s. :p

[Mario Facchini]

I wonder what the baggage policy would be for such a routing considering it's a 5,050nm journey between CDG and RUN.

I guess if this does become reality it'll trump EK's two-class layout of 604 seats.

In all common sense though, does an airline like Air Austral really need an aircraft the size and capacity of the A380? Seems more like a political 'French Connection' sorta deal to me. I guess we should also expect Air Tahiti Nui and Air Caledonia to sign-up to a couple of A380s. :p

Don't be suprised !! if austral are going to use the one class on their paris-reunion-Sydney trips and link up with aircalin to new caledonia.