Transaero has announced that they will order an A380 with a seat configuration of over 700, including all classes.  Would you feel comfortable on board any airliner with that many passengers? Air France’s A380 holds the most to date with 538 seats. Air Austral (France) has an 840 configuration, all economy, in the works — but not flying as of yet.

Not too long ago Global Traveler was asked to meet the CEO of Transaero for a One on One interview.

The meeting was to take place at 8 p.m. on a Friday night — that should have raised a red flag.  The meeting was to be at JFK International Airport, to accommodate the CEO’s arrival on a Transaero flight.  The flight was over two hours late, and when he finally landed, the CEO ran off to have his fun in New York City, ignoring the journalist who had taken the time to be there.

How will it be flying on Transaero with 700 souls?

Skytrax ranks Transaero as a two-star airline, out of five stars. Their definition of two-star says it all: “a poor Quality performance — falling below the industry average in the different competitive rankings of Product and Service standards. The 2-Star Airline ranking represents a poor standard of Product and/or poor and inconsistent standards of Staff Service delivery in Onboard or Airport environments. This ranking is assessed by SKYTRAX after detailed Product and Service standards analysis for each featured airline, and is not connected in any way to customer ratings across the Forum pages.”

— Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO