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Paris / Bloomberg
Airbus Group SE is exploring ways of carving out extra space on its A380 superjumbos in order to boost capacity and enhance margins for operators, among them modifying the staircases that connect the double-decker jet’s two passenger floors.
Feedback from existing A380 customers suggests that curved steps located toward the rear of the world’s biggest jetliner are rarely used since passengers have little need to move between levels, opening up the possibility of making them less of a design feature to create more room. The planes also feature double-width stairs at the front reminiscent of those from on ocean liner.
Re-arranging fixtures and fittings within the A380 could accommodate 60 more customers without reducing the width or pitch of its seats, according to Kiran Rao, Airbus’s director of strategy and marketing. The planemaker is working with clients including Qantas Airways Ltd. to boost per-flight revenue.
Many early A380 operators chose to customize the plane with perks such as showers, found on Emirates aircraft, and lavish duty-free displays, on Korean Airlines Co. While that established the model as a fleet flagship it held back capacity, with Korean offering 409 seats on a plane designed to carry 525.
Narrow-Body Tweaks
Airbus has already added nine berths to the 150-seat A320 short-haul model and 20 to the A321, which previously held 185 people. Measures such as moving lavatories or crew rest areas helped achieve those increases and would work just as well on the A380, Rao said.