Airbus Set to Certify the A380 For 873 Passangers

Airbus is set to certify the A380 for up to 873 passangers.

There is a high tech method used to determine certification. You put as many seats as you can intot he plane, get voulenteer passangers to belt up and then you evacuate or deboards as many as you can in 90 seconds. The number that can deboard then becomes the certification number. Only half the doors are avalible for the drills.

By comparison, the 747-400 is already certified for 660 passangers.

40% of the passangers must be female
35% must be 50 or older

Airbus says they intend to recruit from sports clubs in the Hamburg area. Hmmm, how often will everybody flying be in world class shape? They should take random samplings to be more realistic. i realisze there is some pride in the number but overinflating at the expence of safety could lead to a Titanic / Lifeboat disaster

From the March 14 AWST

All aircraft have a maximum passenger rating of a LOT more than they fly with as standard:

(details taken from various sources - quick google only so these figures may not be exact)

777 - All economy rated at 440 passengers
767 - All economy 360 passengers
747 - All economy 550 passengers

A330 - All economy 370 passengers
A340 - All economy 480 passengers

As you can see, all aircraft can carry a lot more passengers than they are rated for, its simply a penis measuring competition.

As for using a random sampling, think about it - how are you going to get 800+ people with disparate demographics in one place at the same time? It was probably hard enough to get 800 people from one single demographic, and you have to understand that the type of people you are suggesting they get (out of shape people etc) probably arent the same sort of people likely to volunteer for the event.

Interesting anecdote: the 777 was actually supposed to be rated for 441 passengers (all jumpseats filled etc) but the final passenger refused to go down the chute, thus dooming the aircraft to be certified for one less passenger