Son wants to fly on an A380

[Deanno1dad]

As the title suggests my son has always wanted to travel on an A380
I'm looking at any airline or route that can basically guarantee the flight to a destination for a weeks break.
hopefully looking to travel April or may next year from London .
Is there a way to check flight schedules to 100% guarantee the aircraft to a destination .
hoping to not be more then 7 or 8 hours away and a bit of sunshine.
over to you guys

[Bradgate]

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

BA operate A380 on Heathrow to Los Angeles, San Francisco & Johannesburg, among others. You can check specific flights on BA.com, the aircraft type will be listed as ‘380’. Obviously, any aircraft can develop a technical problem on the day, and you can never 100% guarantee that a particular type will operate a particular flight on a particular day.

[alangla]

Bradgate said:

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

BA operate A380 on Heathrow to Los Angeles, San Francisco & Johannesburg, among others. You can check specific flights on BA.com, the aircraft type will be listed as 380 . Obviously, any aircraft can develop a technical problem on the day, and you can never 100% guarantee that a particular type will operate a particular flight on a particular day.

Beware. The one time I was in a position to travel on an A380 flight was coming back from our honeymoon via Dulles. At that point the daily offering was an A380 and a 777, so I booked the A380 and paid extra for a double seat upstairs. A couple of months ahead of the flight it got altered to a pair of 747s each day resulting in all sorts of faff getting our seats sorted. On the day a 777 turned up resulting in carnage.

In short, stick to Emirates or maybe Qatar or Etihad from Heathrow, or consider Lufthansa but only on a route that has been solid A380s for years but even then I wouldn’t rely on it.

[Shnozz]

alangla said:

Beware. The one time I was in a position to travel on an A380 flight was coming back from our honeymoon via Dulles. At that point the daily offering was an A380 and a 777, so I booked the A380 and paid extra for a double seat upstairs. A couple of months ahead of the flight it got altered to a pair of 747s each day resulting in all sorts of faff getting our seats sorted. On the day a 777 turned up resulting in carnage.

In short, stick to Emirates or maybe Qatar or Etihad from Heathrow, or consider Lufthansa but only on a route that has been solid A380s for years but even then I wouldn t rely on it.

Agreed. Stick with Emirates. I have had the same with BA and had to ensure a 777. Was booked on business class and it was such a miserable experience I ended up complaining and getting a chunky BA voucher on the back of it. Completely crap flight from JFK back to London.

[Dashnine]

Bradgate said:

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

Definitely go to Dubai - he’ll be astounded at the number of A380s lined up, one after the other!

[paulguitar]

Dashnine said:

Bradgate said:

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

Definitely go to Dubai - he ll be astounded at the number of A380s lined up, one after the other!

It's the same at Changi. I remember looking out of the window there and only being able to see 380s.

[Jader1973]

Glasgow to Dubai is an A380.

If you fly out from there you’ll be able to watch it land as well. Might be more interesting for him?

Emirates do multi city, so you could fly back to Heathrow.

[hidetheelephants]

Jader1973 said:

Glasgow to Dubai is an A380.

If you fly out from there you ll be able to watch it land as well. Might be more interesting for him?

Emirates do multi city, so you could fly back to Heathrow.

Bloody hell, the toytown infrastructure at Glasgow must be bedlam dealing with even a half-full A380, if there are any other arrivals at the same time it would be like the evacuation of Saigon.

[DJC76]

paulguitar said:

Dashnine said:

Bradgate said:

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

Definitely go to Dubai - he ll be astounded at the number of A380s lined up, one after the other!

It's the same at Changi. I remember looking out of the window there and only being able to see 380s.

Less so these days. Singapore don’t have that many 380’s left, BA aren’t flying theirs to SIN atm. A few Emirates visitors each day, one Qantas, one Etihad. Dubai is definitely the place to go for A380’s and certainly the best option if you’re looking to do a medium haul daytime flight. It’s a wonderful aircraft as a passenger but with the exception of emirates not many airlines fell in love with it.

OP the only disadvantage with emirates from the U.K. is that they tend to be configured so that upstairs is for premium seats only ie first and business. There’s not much point flying on an A380 and sitting downstairs if your lad really wants to fly on one. BA do operate one A380 to Dubai each day and they do have economy seating upstairs although be warned it’s a tad miserable.

[Claret m]

Slightly left field. How about a weekend in Toulouse and visit this fantastic museum

https://youtu.be/bi6CbZRr4bs?si=IvhwkvbptH4hf3Af

Your son would then have access to all areas of the 380 and Concorde! And you could also do the Airbus factory tour.

Edited by Claret m on Monday 24th November 10:19

[ScubaBiker]

I am not a regular flyer with Emirates, but I have a flight from Dubai to Gatwick with them next year and that has Economy upstairs. Not sure if all the Dubai-Gatwick flights do, but worth looking into as LHR is more likely to have the bigger demand for First and Business. So LGW might be the better option if you want to be upstairs on a budget.

[Nyloc20]

We flew Emirates Manchester -Dubai return by A380 six years ago to meet up with my brother in law who was an aircraft engineer over there. I’m not keen on flying but we’ve done plenty of holiday flights over the years. We really enjoyed the A380.

[shirt]

hidetheelephants said:

Jader1973 said:

Glasgow to Dubai is an A380.

If you fly out from there you ll be able to watch it land as well. Might be more interesting for him?

Emirates do multi city, so you could fly back to Heathrow.

Bloody hell, the toytown infrastructure at Glasgow must be bedlam dealing with even a half-full A380, if there are any other arrivals at the same time it would be like the evacuation of Saigon.

Boarding is worse, takes forever and is complete bedlam as they just don’t have the space at the gate.

DXB T3 was built for the 380, business passengers have their own floor. Shame it didn’t ’take off’ as it were as it’s a far quieter and smoother ride with decent legroom in economy and business is just brilliant.

I would recommend emirates also, as it’s practically guaranteed and also the in flight experience for kids will make it that little extra special. If your destination is Dubai, there’s a 380 simulator in the mall.

[moles]

When we emigrated from uk to nz during covid we flew with singapore on a a380 there was 24 people on the whole plane. They put us all together in the middle it was laughable. As soon as it took off everyone disbanded and took a row of 3 to themselves each and led out

[The G Kid]

ScubaBiker said:

I am not a regular flyer with Emirates, but I have a flight from Dubai to Gatwick with them next year and that has Economy upstairs. Not sure if all the Dubai-Gatwick flights do, but worth looking into as LHR is more likely to have the bigger demand for First and Business. So LGW might be the better option if you want to be upstairs on a budget.

I fly LGW-DXB regularly, and the overnight flight from London is always the one with no First, and has economy in it's place. It would make sense that the DXB to LGW flight that late morning from DXB is the same plane.

The overnight from DXB to LGW has First, and no upstairs economy.

[DT1975]

We did LHR to Doha with Qatar on an A380 in June. I did some research and the small economy section upstairs on that particular aircraft was excellent.

Coincidently our next flight is Heathrow - Miami next Feb on an A380 (bagged business with Avios) and then Heathrow - Abu dhabi with Etihad in April also on an A380.

Amazingly we'd never done an A380 and here we have three in a row!

[ffc]

Etihad EY62 08:50 and EY68 20:55 Heathrow to Abu Dhabi are always A380.

Emirates EK2 13:40, EK4 20:20, EK6 22:00, EK8 9:10, EK30 15:50, EK32 19:00 Heathrow to Dubai are all A380 flights.

Singapore Airlines SQ317 10:40, SQ319 20:35 Heathrow to Singapore as all A380 Flights

BA BA207 09:45, BA209 14:30 Heathrow to Miami are all A380

BA BA55 18:30, BA57 21:15 Heathrow to Johannesburg all A380

BA BA285 11:45, BA287 Heathrow to San Francisco is an A380

BA BA269 15:10 Heathrow to Los Angeles A380


So a fair few choices of destinations and flight lengths.

Edited by ffc on Wednesday 26th November 15:54

[Peterpetrole]

alangla said:

Bradgate said:

Emirates, Heathrow to Dubai is your best bet. Only operates on A380.

BA operate A380 on Heathrow to Los Angeles, San Francisco & Johannesburg, among others. You can check specific flights on BA.com, the aircraft type will be listed as 380 . Obviously, any aircraft can develop a technical problem on the day, and you can never 100% guarantee that a particular type will operate a particular flight on a particular day.

Beware. The one time I was in a position to travel on an A380 flight was coming back from our honeymoon via Dulles. At that point the daily offering was an A380 and a 777, so I booked the A380 and paid extra for a double seat upstairs. A couple of months ahead of the flight it got altered to a pair of 747s each day resulting in all sorts of faff getting our seats sorted. On the day a 777 turned up resulting in carnage.

In short, stick to Emirates or maybe Qatar or Etihad from Heathrow, or consider Lufthansa but only on a route that has been solid A380s for years but even then I wouldn t rely on it.

Absolutely NOT Etihad, got transferred from an A380 to a twelve year old (I looked it up) tatty 777.

The number of slight flight time changes they advised beforehand I don't think there was ever a prospect of it being an A380 (from Gatwick).

[gazza5]

ffc said:

Etihad EY62 08:50 and EY68 20:55 Heathrow to Abu Dhabi are always A380.

Emirates EK2 13:40, EK4 20:20, EK6 22:00, EK8 9:10, EK30 15:50, EK32 19:00 Heathrow to Dubai are all A380 flights.

Singapore Airlines SQ317 10:40, SQ319 20:35 Heathrow to Singapore as all A380 Flights

BA BA207 09:45, BA209 14:30 Heathrow to Miami are all A380

BA BA55 18:30, BA57 21:15 Heathrow to Johannesburg all A380

BA BA285 11:45, BA287 Heathrow to San Francisco is an A380

BA BA269 15:10 Heathrow to Los Angeles A380

So a fair few choices of destinations and flight lengths.

Edited by ffc on Wednesday 26th November 15:54

We flew on BA269 - 3 weeks ago - seriously do not bother - its crap - needs the insides ripped out and replaced. Screens are crap, we flew to Dubai 10 years ago in a A380 and this was better 10 years ago - than the crap plane we had with BA in 2025!

I would cross that one off the list.

[gazza5]

Hit post too soon.

We had the old style controllers for the screen, and the headphones socket were in the armrests (modern planes have them in front of you).

The plane on the way out - think it was a 777 not sure - was a lot newer and better.