Does Airbus A380 helps easing traffic congestion at airports?

Bloomberg ran an interesting article about how the current regulations mandating 12% more separation between the Airbus A380 and other planes to avoid the wake turbulence generated by the A380 is inhibiting Dubai airport to maximize the benefits of the super-jumbo by increasing the number of flights it can land or take off from the airport.

There are no clear cut answers as to whether the A380 is really making the airlines help carry more passengers in totality from an airport. The article has interesting comparison between the separation required between the Boeing 777s which are the other mainstay of Dubai’s flagship carrier, Emirates and the Boeing 747 jumbos and how that fares against the A380. The comparison seems true at face value but to quantify the actual impact, I guess we may need to factor in more data such as of number of passengers per plane and the costs involved. And not only does this apply to Dubai but you can similarly use the same analogy across the world at busiest airports like Heathrow, JFK, LAX or Singapore. It’s very interesting how the changing landscape in aviation advancements solves a particular problem just to create a new set of issues of its own. This endless cycle may never crease and hopefully we get to see more new things coming up in future that may one day radically reshape the way we are in air travel today.

You can read the complete article here