Did A380 flight UAE16 LGW to DXB 25/07/2026 set a world record?
The fastest recorded speed an A380 has ever flown is 654mph
UAE16 flew at 655mph at 12:44
I think the pilot wanted to make up time as they were running an hour late!
I have a friend and her children on board so I followed their progress and noted very fast speeds.
But maybe this was because of tail winds?
I hope someone can explain!
Are we talking IAS, TAS or GS?
This is my first time on here. I looked at this website:
This is an interesting post related to speed of commercial jet liners.
Geoff
The quoted Mach 0.96 / 654mph number will be a true airspeed, i.e. speed relative to the surrounding air (which may itself be moving)
The speeds in the FA graph/tracklog you see are groundspeeds, i.e. speed relative to the Earth’s surface, which includes the effect of any head- or tail-wind.
For this particular flight, the reported TAS [true airspeed] at the time was around 500kt = 575mph, so there was a tailwind component of around ~80mph
The ground speed you see on flight trackers includes the effect of tailwinds, so it isn’t the aircraft’s true airspeed. An A380 can show unusually high ground speeds when riding a strong jet stream, especially on eastbound flights to Dubai. So it’s very unlikely this was a world speed record for the aircraft itself—it was most likely a combination of normal cruise speed and exceptionally favorable winds.
