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Airbus A380: More Passengers Means More Toilets

by Dave Luna (RSS feed) on Jan 29th 2007 at 4:14PM

The Airbus A380 is truly a marvel of modern engineering. Not only is it the largest airliner in the world, but it is also the most advanced. Engineers crafted each system with meticulous detail from the fly-by-wire systems to the... toilets?

Yes, I'll admit that plumbing wasn't my first consideration when ogling pictures of the enormous plane, but it certainly was a chief concern for the company. Frank Dohrmann, an Airbus lead engineer, told journalists that customers won't care about a small temperature variance, but "if the toilets get jammed, every passenger will remember it for years." I know I certainly would. In fact, it would be my first Gadling post once I landed.

3,280ft of water and waste pipes are housed within the 197ft frame of the A380. Sewage travels through the waste pipes at more than 60mph. This might seem like overkill, but the speed is required to support the 18 toilets for up to 800 passengers. Now, that's a lot of poop. Not impressed yet? How about this -- the plumbing is also capable of supporting showers. Fancy!

I hope, with all of these toilets, the Airbus A380 has an air freshener system that's just as advanced.

Related: Howstuffworks - How does the toilet in a commercial airliner work?

Filed under: Stories, Airlines