Would someone care to enlighten me as to how the levels of comfort, noise and smoothness of the A350 stack up against the Boeing 777 competition?
They are wolds apart. A350 is significantly more quiet, there is no engine vibration on the A350 while on the 777 and 787 you can strongly feel it if seated close to them (it is enough to make the cutlery on your plate rattle...). In gusty weather the yaw damper fights hard on the 77W, have not experienced it in the recent years, maybe they also improved the design? I remember a flight some 10 years ago where the forward cabin did constant lateral oscillations after each gust which shook me in my seat for hours. No service on that flight, FAs remained seated.
Most of my A380 landings were hard, read about it in some forums as well, might be purely accidental. Otherwise the A380 is great to fly, smooooth and quiet. Size matters.