British Airways will refurbish its Airbus A380 fleet with a new cabin layout that cuts total capacity from 469 to 417 seats while expanding premium space across all four classes. The first upgraded superjumbo is expected to enter service in the coming months, with the upper deck given over entirely to Club World in a move that creates the airline’s largest business-class cabin.
The revised configuration will include 12 First suites, 106 Club World seats, 84 World Traveller Plus seats and 215 World Traveller seats. Economy will lose the most capacity, falling from 303 seats to 215, while premium economy rises from 55 to 84 seats. British Airways has framed the programme as one of its most extensive cabin overhauls, involving more than 35,000 individual parts on each aircraft.
The retrofit is part of a wider push to lift the long-haul product mix on a flagship aircraft used on dense, high-yield routes. British Airways has 12 A380s in its fleet, and each overhaul takes about 100 days, requiring aircraft to be rotated out of service temporarily. The carrier has also pared back A380 flying while work continues, with the final route deployment schedule still to be revealed.