Korean confirms plenty of space on its A380s for legs and knees

As promised, Korean Air passengers will enjoy plenty of legroom when the airline receives its first Airbus A380 next year. The airline’s fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbos will be configured with fewer seats than any operator to date.

The Asian airline wants to attract long-haul, premium-class, high-yield passengers.

The giant plane, world’s largest commercial passenger jet, will be fitted with between 400 and 450 seats, a configuration Korean Air claims will make it “the most spacious A380 anywhere”. This will leave room for “plenty of snazzy features,” spokesman James Sanderson told news agency Bloomberg in London. The design includes lounges for premium passengers.

A380s are frequently configured with over 500 seats – with 555 seats a standard configuration sometimes used. The aircraft has about one-third more seating capacity than a B747-400 and is certified to carry a maximum of 853 passengers. French Airline Air Austral plans to carry 840 passengers in all-economy mode in an A380 between Paris and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Qantas is stil getting over problems with the A380 fleet, caused by the Roll-Royce Trent 900 engine rather than the plane itself. For the record, Qantas configures its A380s with a spacious 450 seats – the lowest number of any operator. Newer Qantas A380s, yet to be delivered, may have more seats than that – final configuration has not been decided. Air France A380s have 538 seats and Lufthansa’s have 526, Emirates 489 and Singapore Airlines 471.

Korean Air says its first Airbus A380 aircraft has entered final production phase at the Airbus factory in Toulouse, France. It’s due for delivery in May. The airline has ordered 10 of the Model aircraft type, for delivery until 2014.

Korean Air plans to use its A380 for short-haul routes to major cities in Japan and East Asia, deploying the aircraft on long-haul routes to Europe and the US from next August. The airline says it will become the first Asian carrier to use the A380 on trans-Pacific routes. It will be the sixth airline to fly the A380.

Written by Peter Needham

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