How much fuel does the airbus a380 hold?

The A380-800's 320,000 litres (84,500 US gal) are not in one place. Tanks fill most of the wing, including the outer sections, there is a centre tank in the wing box, and a trim tank sits inside the horizontal stabiliser. That last one matters as much for balance as for capacity: the aircraft pumps fuel aft in cruise to move the centre of gravity rearwards, reducing the download the tailplane must produce and with it the trim drag. Because the tanks are spread so widely, the fuel system runs an automatic transfer schedule in flight, keeping the wings loaded for bending relief while the centre of gravity stays inside limits.

At a typical jet fuel density near 0.8 kg per litre, a full load is about 254 tonnes, close to half the 575-tonne maximum take-off weight. Very few flights carry it. Fuel is loaded for the planned route plus contingency, an alternate airport and a final reserve, and taking more than that is self-defeating, because every extra tonne aboard costs fuel to lift and to haul. Tankering cheap fuel to avoid an expensive uplift at the far end pays on short sectors, not on the routes an A380 flies.

The number sounds enormous until it is divided by the cabin. With about 525 passengers in a typical three-class layout, Airbus marketed the aircraft at under three litres per passenger per hundred kilometres, comparable to a small car carrying one person. The catch is that the arithmetic only works with the seats filled, which is the commercial reason the type left production rather than anything to do with the size of its tanks.