"Dave" wrote in message
...


A friend went to Alaska recently in a 747. He commented that they
could have put that many passengers in a commuter. OTOH when my wife
came back from New Zealand last year, every seat was full. The ones
in front of her had three air sick kids which made it a memorable 13
hours.

The one flight probably didn't pay for the taxi time, but the other
probably did quite well.


No surprise Singapore airlines is the launch customer and that the other
leading customers are all major flyers from Europe to the East. These
flights all tend to be full. I have yet to do a flight where the airplane
has not been chockablock full. They will fill the A380 however many seats
they put in then on these routes.
The major issue will be how quickly the airports will be able to process
the passengers. I would not be surprised to see some immigration duties
carried out on board the aircraft and with the satellite links now
available, it is entirely feasible to link to immigration databases etc.
One immigration officer could happily handle 600 passengers even allowing
for the non straight forward ones over an 10-12 hour period.
Now if an airline offered that service then they would get my business.


This is in contrast with flights from Europe to North America where there
is often empty seats. Last September coming back to London from Chicago
the United flight was half full


In those 11 years I have lived in Hong Kong I have only experienced once a
plane being only about half full.

Nik