A380 Separation Distance Reduced

One of the concerns about the A380 is that it is a large plane, and wingtip vortices grow as an aircraft does, so separation standard was established to prevent trailing aircraft from being destabilized by the these phenomena.

Airbus thought the standard was was excessive, and following tests, the standards have been relaxed, from, "6nm separation for a heavy aircraft such as the 747, 8nm for medium or small aircraft in the A320 category and 10 nm for light category aircraft," to 4nm, 5nm, and 6nm, the same as a Boeing 747.