1,000 Airbus A380 Flights at Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines has announced yesterday that it has completed its 1,000th Airbus A380 commercial flight on Monday, when its scheduled service from Singapore to London Heathrow touched down in the United Kingdom as flight SQ 322. Singapore already operates five of the superjumbos, and claims that all aircraft have performed “remarkably” since entering service last October. In reality there were a few incidents indeed, but nothing major – and these kind of small glitches are normal in airline operations, especially when rolling out a new type into everyday operations.

Singapore Airlines A380 arriving at London Heathrow - c by Allan Huse on airliners.net

The five airplanes have accumulated 8,500 flight hr. and carried nearly 400,000 customers. More than 220,000 have traveled on the Singapore-Sydney route, with the rest shared between Singapore-London and Singapore-Tokyo. This is really good news after the scandalous road of the Airbus A380 entry into commercial services. The sixth A380 is scheduled to arrive in September, with a further 13 to follow in the coming years. Singapore Airlines has options on an additional six and has been the first and only operator of the type until last week, when Emirates took their first Airbus A380.

by balint01

Singapore Airlines A380 News

Singapore Airlines took delivery of the third Airbus A380 superjumbo, which arrived in Singapore on Wednesday and has 471 seats, in the same configuration as the first two aircraft. The delivery was relatively quiet, even in dedicated news about airlines, it was only a two line short notification, rather than a regular news item. Singapore plans to use this aircraft on its new route to London Heathrow, together with their second one. The new route scheduled to open in a few days on 18MAR2008 will mark the first time an A380 is flying to the old continent as a scheduled service.

Separately Singapore Airlines has announced yesterday that it will open another new route flown by the largest commercial jet, on 20MAY2008, which will take the superjumbo to Japan. The new flight SQ636 will depart Singapore Changi at 23:40 (the inagural flight will take off one hour later) and will arrive to Tokyo Narita at 7:30 am (8:30) the next day. The return flight will take off from the Japanese metropolitan at 11:30 and will arrive to Singapore at 17:35 the same day. Tokyo is the fourth city to be serviced by the A380, and the first one in Asia. Tickets already bought for these flights remain valid without a change, similar to the way the London tickets were rebooked to the A380 automatically.

by balint01

New A380 Route to London

As we reported earlier, Singapore Airlines has already received their second Airbus A380 super-jumbo, and is planning to take the third one by mid March. While the second one currently serves training purposes and completes a few scheduled flights to Hong Kong, in reality she is only waiting for her sister to arrive so they can start to serve the first European route of the A380: London Heathrow directly from Singapore Changi airport.

The first flight with flight number SQ 308 will take off from Singapore at 9:00 am on 18MAR2008 and will arrive in London at 15:05 the same day. Then late afternoon at 18:55 it will head back to the home of Singapore Airlines (SIA) as flight SQ 319 and will arrive to its Asian destination at 15:35 on 19MAR2008. These two flights mark the official launch of the second route served by SIA after Sydney since October 2007 with the first super-jumbo. This will also be the first commercial flight of the A380 involving a European airport.

Following the special first day flights, the schedule will be similar to other flights on similar routes, please see the table below as provided by Singapore Airlines. The first one is about the interim time between 18MAR and 30MAR (the last day of the Winter schedule for the airline industry) the second table shows the schedule for the Summer season.

Scheduled A380 services (Northern Winter 2007/2008)

Flight number Commencement date Departure Time Arrival Time SQ 322 Singapore-London Daily from 18 March 2008 2320 hours 0525 hours next day SQ 317 London-Singapore Daily from 19 March 2008 1100 hours 0740 hours next day

Scheduled A380 services (Northern Summer 2008)

Flight number Commencement date Departure Time Arrival Time SQ 322 Singapore-London Daily from 30 March 2008 2330 hours 0555 hours next day SQ 317 London-Singapore Daily from 30 March 2008 1155 hours 0745 hours next day

According to the airline, those passengers who already have tickets for these flighs, will be able to fly on those flights, even though they originally purchased their flights not knowing that it would be served by the A380. Those, who already have a booking but not yet received a ticket for it, “may need to check if there have been changes to their fares as a result of the aircraft change.” In other words, their fares have probably been increased at least due to higher demand on these flights. If you manage to get on board the inaugural London flights (SQ308/319) on 18 March, you will receive personalised certificates recognising your participation in the milestone event, as well as limited edition Singapore Airlines A380 souvenirs and exclusive premium giveaways.

The introduction of this route flown by the A380 also marks the first case when a passenger will be able to connect from a flight on the A380 to another flight, also flown by the A380 if they travel between London and Sydney with a transfer in Singapore. In this case they will actually have to spend almost 13 hours in Singapore, but it may very well be worth it!

by balint01

Singapore Airlines Takes Delivery of Second Airbus A380

 

On 11JAN2008, Singapore Airlines took delivery of its second Airbus A380 super-jumbo. The first one was delivered in front of the press, as it was the first ever A380 to be handed over for regular operations. The second one didn’t get as much attention and such a big ceremony, either, it was delivered and entered service relatively “quiet”, which marks the real entrance into everyday operations of the A380 in my opinion. From now on it is not “the A380”, but it’s one of the airplane types being operated around the world, and most probably – unless there is a problem while engine testing (which we hope will never happen again) – we will start not hearing about A380 deliveries, except for the firsts at each new airline that puts the model into service.

The first aircraft still flies daily between Singapore Changi airport and Sydney. The delivery of the second will allow Singapore Airlines to complement the first aircraft, allowing some rotation of aircraft on the existing Sydney route, and providing opportunities for crew training. The onboard set-up is exactly the same as on the first one (registration number: 9V-SKA) with 471 seats in three classes.

Then, on delivery of the third aircraft in late February, Singapore Airlines will start a daily service between Singapore and London Heathrow.

Singapore Airlines is the first to fly the A380, and is currently still the only airline in the world operating the aircraft. They have firm orders for a further 17 A380s.

by balint01

First A380 incidents

Although only two A380s have been delivered so far, one of them a few months ago, the second one on the 11th of January (last Friday), this weekend the first incident happened to the first one, although last year another one happened before its first delivery.

The first incident

An Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger jet, scraped the tip of a wing on a building at Bangkok’s international airport in last September as it was preparing for a demonstration flight, officials of the aircraft company and Thai Airways said.

The plane, which had been taxiing with journalists and VIP guests on board, suffered minor damage, delaying its planned flight to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai by just over three hours, they said. There were no injuries.

The second incident

The first A380, which has been operating between Singapore Changi and Sydney since October, rolled off the Singapore’s tarmac at the new Terminal 3 and onto the grass after the truck that was pushing it failed and disconnected from the plane, according to widespread press reports from Singapore. There were 446 passengers onboard and all disembarked safely. Arrangements reportedly were made to transport them to Australia aboard alternate equipment.

“As a consequence of the failure on the truck, the aircraft. . .came into contact with the grass verge off the airport tarmac. The aircraft was not under its own power at the time,” an Singapore Airlines spokesperson told CNN Friday. “It is too early at this time to know the cause of the incident, but Singapore Airlines will investigate this quickly and is filing reports with the appropriate Singapore authorities.” Four tires reportedly rolled up onto the grass and were replaced and the aircraft was scheduled to be ready to fly later Friday, Agence France Press reported, citing an Singapore Airlines spokesperson.

“The damage is very limited. It’s superficial in the sense that there is possibly damage to tires, but nothing to the structure of the aircraft,” SIA told the Associated Press. “The engineers are doing a very careful inspection of the plane. They’re being very careful because it’s the first time and they just want to be very sure.”

Source: AP, ATW Online

By Szafi

Best Of AirlineWorld 2007

This is the last day of the year. As billions of people around the world, we also took a look back to what happened in the old year and made some New Year’s Resolutions.

For us 2007 was not a full year as we started our blog in June. It was a nice calm Sunday and Szafi wrote her first post about the Radio Alphabet – a useful tool not just for aviation fans. Balint01 joined her on the 7th with his first post about “Fuller Planes – Good Or Bad?” – a brief explanation of revenue and capacity management of airlines.

A380 

A380 was one of our main topics this year. We could see the a video of an imaginery evacuation of an A380, we reported on that quite unusual initiation that Singapore Airlines sold the first tickets to the A380 on e-Bay and gave the money (USD 1,25 million) for charity. We tried to find out more about the possible cabin configurations and then we reported on the first delivery.

Boeing 787

Boeing 787, the Dreamliner was our other favorite topic. We wrote about it when it was revealed, we put it in our blog header, we reported on the first announcement of delay that predicted 2 months. Now it seems that a 6-month delay is more realistic.

Developments 

Besides A380 and B787 we saw the birth of a Russian jet called Sukhoi Superjet and a Chinese one called ARJ21-700. We kept track of technology trends in aviation. We wrote an article about RFID usage at airlines and airports, about e-ticketing, a new online payment method at Qantas, a weightless flight, a solar powered, unmanned aircraft. Also we were interested in service developments such as the new Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at London Heathrow Airport, Lufthansa’s new A380 First Class Concept, Boeing’s 747 development to keep up with A380,

Crashes 

Unfortunately again some serious accidents happened. We saw around 200 people dying in a very tragical crash in Sao Paulo, brazil. 19 people died in an accident of Air Moorea on the way to Tahiti. When China Airline’ 737 burst into fire and blew up, everybody could escape in time thanks to the flight crew, who was criticized for being rude – we thought it was better being rude than being inactive. Later it turned out that a loose bolt caused the fire. There was a sad collision of two planes at an Air Show in Radom, Poland. SAS Airlineshad a bad series of crash landings – without serious injuries – of its Dash 8 turboprop planes. Finally they decided on grounding all their Dash 8 fleet. 87 died in One-Two-Go Airlines crash in Phuket, Thailand. A few days later rallye driver champion Colin McRae died in a helicopter crash over Scotland. The most commented article was the weird accident of an Airbus A340 on the ground of the Airbus factory during testing. The last serious accident of the year was an MD-83 crash in Turkey killing 56.

Photo reports 

We received a lot of photos from our friends and airline enthusiasts, so we could show a photo report of a Royal Aircraft in Budapest, Red Bull Air Race in Budapest, an Air Show in Kecskemet and the A340 Airbus crash at the Toulouse Airbus factory.

Innovations 

We criticized airlines and other players of the industry about wrong steps and we were happy to present good initiations of other players. We found KLM’s promotion: a gift of a costmetics set for online bookers a very smart and useful initiation. We loved Iberia’s enviroment-friendly attitude with naming their new aircrafts Royal Owl, Imperial Eagle and other endangered species. We could read funny comments about an interesting topic: Vatican’s Air Mistral. IATA’s initiation of a greener aviation industry was also worth a post.

Sex and rock and roll 

And finally we tried to entertain those not interested in professional matters of the airline business with articles like Sex in an airplane, Sexy stewardess uniforms – with special attention to the self-designed uniform of Easyjet, Superstar pilots, Special aircraft paintings and we learned about where lost luggage end up going.

We also lost a very key figure of the European airline indusry. Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair died on 03 October at the age of 71. Net year we will definately write an article about him, because only a few know about his role in today’s aviation business.

And what is our New Year’s resolution? Well, we’ll do our best to entertain you and draw your attention to the magic world of airlines we so much love.

We both wish you a very happy, successful new year and please keep on reading us! 🙂

By Szafi and balint01

Sexy Stewardess Uniforms

It has been a long time I wanted to take the time and write this post. It is a little bit long, but I ensure you it is not just the photos that are interesting! 🙂

Who can become a flight attendant?

Not everybody qualifies for a stewardes. Flighat attendants need to go through a 6 weeks to 6 months training period that includes psychological, IQ and physical tests (depending on the airline’s requirements). Safety training includes, but is not limited to: emergency passenger evacuation management, use of evacuation slides / life rafts, in-flight fire fighting, survival in the jungle, sea, desert, ice, first aid, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, ditching/emergency landing procedures, decompression emergencies, Crew Resource Management and security.

But even those, who pass these tests and trainings, may fail. Some airlines have height and weight requirements. While airlines using bigger jets have minimum height limit, because air hostesses cannot reach the overhead compartments, regional carriers have maximum height limit as the ceiling of the aircrafts is very low. Weight is almost always a concern. Even if they do not communicate it, almost all airlines hire only girls with regular weight. Neither underweighing, nor overweighing applicants are accepted. Even later if somebody gains some weight do the airlines give out a new uniform to anyone.

Playmates, beauty queens

Sex has always been associated with flight attendants. There have been several playmates and former bueauty queen working as stewardesses. No wonder that if we take a look at the series of known women who worked as flight attendants before or after they became famous.

Some of them were:

• Ester Codet was a playmate of the motnh in October 1974
• Avis Miller was playmate in November, 1970
• Julie Woodson was playmate in April, 1973
• Jennifer Hosten was Miss World in 1970, first to win this title for her home, Grenada.
• Kate Linder is still an active US actress
• Evangeline Lilly is a Golden-globe nominated actress, most known for her role in Lost. She worked for Air Canada.

History of airline uniforms

The first stewardess uniforms were designed to be durable, practical, and inspire confidence in passengers. The first stewardesses for United Airlines wore green berets, green capes and nurse’s shoes. Other airlines, such as Eastern Air Lines, actually dressed stewardesses in nurses’ uniforms.
Perhaps reflecting the military aviation background of many commercial aviation pioneers, many early uniforms had a strongly military appearance; hats, jackets, and skirts showed simple straight lines and military details like epaulettes and brass buttons. Many uniforms had a summer and winter version, differentiated by colours and fabrics appropriate to the season: navy blue for winter, for example, khaki for summer. But as the role of women in the air grew, and airline companies began to realise the publicity value of their stewardesses, more feminine lines and colours began to appear in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Some airlines began to commission designs from high-end department stores and still others called in noted designers or even milliners to create distinctive and attractive apparel.

Famous fashion designers – famous uniforms

Christian Lacroix designs uniforms for Air France. British Airways flight crews and staff now sport designs by Givenchy star Julien Macdonald. Los Angeles-based celebrity designer Richard Tyler presented Delta Air Lines’ new line-up alongside his ready-to-wear collection during New York Fashion Week. Korean Air launched new outfits by Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre, including pants for the first time in the airline’s history.

Sexiest airline uniforms

And now let’s look at the list of the most sexy airline uniforms:

1. Hooters Air

2. Singapore Airlines

3. Malaysia Airlines

4. Delta Airlines

5. Thai Airways

6. Etihad Airways

7. Gulf Air

8. Air France

9. Wizz Air

10. Sky Europe

If you liked this collection, check out our other post about special aircraft paintings and our other post about airline meals!

By Szafi

Our blog is moving to a new place. Please drop us an email to intairline@gmail.com, if you would like to receive updates about our blog!

Paper-free Air Cargo

IATA is working with seven key cargo airlines – Air Canada, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Martinair, SAS and Singapore Airlines – freight forwarders (DHL Global Forwarding, Panalpina, Kuehne+Nagel, Schenker, TMI Group-Roadair, Jetspeed) and ground handling agents kick-started the move to a paper-free air cargo environment with the launch of six e-freight pilot projects. Starting today, cargo on key trade routes connecting Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the U.K will be processed electronically.

“The paper-free era for air freight begins today,” said Giovanni Bisignani, Director General & CEO of IATA. “This first wave of pilots will pave the way for a global rollout of e-freight that will eliminate the paper that costs this industry $1.2 billion every year. Combined, these documents could fill 39 B747 cargo freighters each year making e-freight—a win for the business and for the environment.”

“E-freight is a revolution for an industry that is absolutely critical to modern life. For airlines it is a US$55 billion business that generates 12% of their revenues. More broadly air cargo transports 35% of the total value of goods traded across borders. The potential impact of greater efficiency in air cargo has very broad implications across the global economy,” said Bisignani.
E-freight pilots will systematically test for the first time common standards, processes, procedures and systems designed to replace paper documents that typically accompany air freight with electronic information. During the initial phase, selected shipments will travel without a number of key documents that make up the majority of the paperwork, including the house and master air waybills.  Results from the pilots will be used to expand e-freight to other territories.

IATA e-freight requires that business, technical and legal frameworks are in place to allow airlines, freight forwarders, customs administrations and governments to seamlessly exchange electronic information and e-documents.  The six pilot locations were selected based on their ability to meet these criteria along with offering network connectivity and sufficient cargo volumes.

At each location cargo experts from participating airlines, freight forwarders, ground handling agents, local customs administrations and airport authorities worked together closely over the past 10 months to prepare the pilots.
“High oil prices and cumbersome processing requirements are handicapping air transport’s competitiveness with sea shipping,” said Bisignani. “Sea shipping is expected to grow at 6% annually over the next five years, compared to 4.8% for air cargo. E-freight makes a four-decade leap, bringing strengthened competitiveness by cutting costs and improving transparency and consistency throughout the supply chain. This good news for the customer will help shore-up air transport’s competitiveness with sea shipping and other modes of transport.”

E-freight is one of five Simplifying the Business projects being led by IATA to improve service and cut costs. The industry has set a deadline of the end of 2010 for the implementation of e-freight wherever feasible.

Source: IATA.org

The Scandalous Road of A380

On 25 October 2007 the first scheduled flight operated by an Airbus A380 takes off from Singapore to Sydney. Tickets for the first flight were sold on e-Bay for USD 1,25 million. The total profit of the first flight will go to charity. Singapore Airlines is a very caring, proud new owner. They took part in the developments from day one. CEO Chew Choon Seng said at the delivery ceremony: “From today there is a new queen of the skies in air travel.”

The Supersize Queen

The Superjumbo is a record from many aspects. The following numbers present how outstanding this giant plane is. It is 73 m long (as a comparison the width of a soccer field is 73 m). Its wingspan is 80 m and its height is 24 m. The operating empty weight is 277 tons, while maximum take off wieght is 560 tons. Usable cabin space: 630 sq m. In the cockpit there are no more rod controls, normal PC joysticks are used isntead. The big lady requires more space on the ground, too. The early studies thought that the A380 will ruin all runways and taxiways, but the first tests show it harms concrete and asphalt less than Boeing 747 as A380 has 22 wheels, while Jumbo has 4 less. It seems that any airport can accept the A380, but still it needs more space on tha apron and during maneuvering in front of the terminal buildings. Bridges designed for double decker planes are also necessary for simultaneous passenger boarding. Naturally the huge engines make bigger turbulance than other frequently used passenger aircrafts, so more space is needed for taking off or landing after an A380.

Flying Wonderland

The huge milady is definately luxurious. The new Singapore Airlines fleet member will carry 471 people on board (the plane itself can be seated up to 800, but the standard 3 cabin – economy, business, first – configuration can have 550 seats). The 399 economy seats will feature and a 23 cm widescreen for 100 movies, 180 TV programmes, 700 cd and 22 radio stations to choose from. The 60 business seats on the upper deck will be laid-out in a 1-2-1 formation, with each seat being 86 cm wide. The business seats convert to a fully-flat bed. The First Class Suites look something similar to old classy train cabins rather than airplane seats. They are cabins and not seats with a full size mattress, a wide screen on the wall and they can easily be transformed from a bedroom to a mini restaurant, where first class passengers can invite their first class mates for dinner. First class cabins can be paired up and opened to a bigger suite with a double bed.

It is not just Singapore Airlines that wants to give special services to its high yield passengers. Emirates that has just reseated it 777 fleet with first class cabins resembling the spirit of the old Orient-Express. They are expected to present similar luxury on board their new A380s. They will probably create more social scenes as well, such as a bar or a fitness room at least that is what Virgin Atlantic plans to do, so they must keep themselves competitive. 🙂 Qantas also plans a bar and even their business class seats will have built-in massage function. Lufthansa has just presented the first part of their new First Class concept by opening a new First Class lounge at Frankfurt and Munich.

The long and winding road

Airbus started planning the development of a Megaliner – as they called it at that time. Their goal was to break the dominance of Boeing in the giant planes segment with its very successful 747. Other competitors also tried to enter the market, but they all failed. It was clearly visible that this segment is too small for more than 2 models, therefore Airbus and Boeing joined efforts and wrote a feasibility study of a common plane together. The common development never started, so following the decision of Airbus’ Supervisory Board on 19 december 2000, a EUR 8.8 bllion project was started. The number 8 in the A380 is a symbol of the double deck and in many Far-Eastern cultures it is a lucky number (and as mentioned above, Singapore Airlines took part from the first day). The number was not that lucky in this case though as the project missed its deadline by 1,5 years and overdrafted its budget by EUR 2.2 billion. The first delay was announced in June 2005 blaming the enormous amount (530 km) of cables needed for each oaircraft. The next delay came in June 2006 followed by a 26% drop in the value of Airbus and the owner company EADS shares. At this point there were serious consequences and the CEO of EADS and Airbus and the A380 programme manager had to leave their companies. It was the new CEO who announced the biggest delay in October 2006 and successfully estimating the first delivery to happen a year later. In connection with the delays, a new scandal came into the sight of both the media and the French parliament. It appeared that before the June 2006 delay announcement, EADS and Airbus high level managers sold their shares. They are accused with internal trading and now a legal procedure is on against them.

What is next?

Seventeen airlines have ordered the A380, including an order from aircraft lessor ILFC. Total orders for the A380 stand at 190, of which 165 were firm as of 30 September 2007. Airbus expects to sell a total of 750 aircraft, and estimated break-even at 420 units, increased from 270 due to the delays and the falling exchange rate of the US dollar. In April 2007, Airbus CEO Louis Gallois said that break-even had risen further, but declined to give the new figure. Industry analysts anticipate between 400 and 880 sales by 2025. As of 2006, the list price of an A380 is US$ 296 to 316 million, depending on equipment installed.

It is still unprojectable whether the business model of such a huge tin lady will be successful or not. It can be operated profitably by airlines taht have many long haul flights with huge number of passengers on these routes. The number of such airlines is limited and due to travel seasons it is not sure that even on these routes they can always fill this huge bird. Anyway we keep our fingers crossed, because when seeing such scientific development, we can always see our own evolution.

By Szafi and Balint01

Airbus A380: The First Delivery

October 15 2007 has a few minutes ago just become an important date in many history books: it will be remembered as a very important milestone for Airbus, for EADS, for Rolls Royce, for Singapore Airlines (SIA) and for commercial aviation history in general, as this date marks the first delivery of the Airbus A380 Suprejumbo to its first customer.

The Ceremony took place in Tolouse, France, with a large modell of a Singapore painted A380 above the stage, and was attended by all the major parties involved in this remarkable engineering quest: Airbus, EADS, Rolls Royce and of course Singapore Airlines. Thomas Enders, CEO of Airbus focused on their employees and has pointed out: “We are determined to put the A380 program back on track and ramp-up the deliveries in 2008 and 2009 in front of us.” He called the new Superjumbo a “Gentle Green Giant” and mentioned that following all the technical tests, the unprecedented airport and airline tests, Airbus feels priviliged to hand over this new aircraft to one of the most innovative airlines of the world: to Singapore Airlines.

Chew Choon Seng, CEO of Singapore Airlines (standing in front of beautiful Singapore Airlines Flight Attendants) has said: “We start a new chapter in the history of aviation – From today there is a new queen of the skies in air travel.” He also pointed out that SIA has been involved in the development of this new airplane since the very early days of the program, since 2000.

Mr Seng briefly explained the new cabin, which the world has been waiting for:
With a total of 471 seats it will seat 399 in economy: that will feature more legroom, and a personal 23 cm videoscreen with audio and video on demand for each seat. All economy passengers will have access to a computer poweroutlet and a USB port. The layout in economy is 2-4-2 on the upper deck, and 3-4-3 on the main deck.
The 60 business seats on the upper deck will be laid-out in a 1-2-1 formation, with each seat being 86 cm wide. The business seats convert to a fully-flat bed. When walking through the cabin a few minutes later, the CEO of Rolls Royce has pointed out that about 10-15 years ago these seats would have been the world’s premier first class experience. There is one stand-up self-serve bar in Business class.
The premier cabin is “beyond first class” as Singapore calls it. We have found out that they don’t even call it “First class” anymore, the 12 “seats” are luxurious personal suites aboard an aircraft, targeted at passengers who want more compromise between sitting and sleeping while in the air. Each First Class Suite features a full size mattress (6 foot 6 inch = 198 cm) in personal suite, that have sliding doors and pull-down windows. Mr. Seng called it “a new standard for luxury in commercial aircraft“.
Singapore’s famous onboard entertainment system, KrisWorld will be offering 100 movies, more than 180 TV programs, 700 CDs and over 22 radio channels. The same entertainment box will include a word processor and 3D games as well.

After the ceremony, the three CEO’s (Airbus, Rolls-Royce and SIA) went for a short walk on board the aircraft, where Mr. Seng proudly took the role of the “host” – as the new owner of this beautiful airplane and as the cameras followed them, we could finally see the long-awaited interior of the A380 revealed. The First Class Suites look something similar to old classy train cabins rather than airplane seats. The flight attendants will actually walk in between walls (!), not between seats. If somebody decides to work on their computer while experiencing the ultimate luxury air travel, they can connect their computer to the large screen hanging on the wall of the suite. While walking around with Mr. Seng, we could see a double bed as well (“for honeymooners” according to him – and as somebody from the sightseeing group pointed out – for extra charge – it carries a 25% premium above first class fares), there was also one suite set up for dinner with somebody from the same class (yes, you will be able to invite one of the other fellow first class travellers over for a meal). We could also take a quick look at the first class washroom, which is big enough for wheelchair access, has a full wall of mirror. The tour actually started on the upper deck with a look at the business seats, then the three men walked down the stairs to take a look at the first class suites and finally try out the economy cabin as well. A brief look at the working area of flight attendants followed where Mr. Seng showed some of the new comforting features for the crew and said “We look after the pilots and the crew“. We could not see a lounge onboard. They closed the small tour at the bottom of the staircase with raising their champagne glasses in the company of beautiful Singapore flight attendants again.

(Update: Singapore has published a few videos and animations of the cabin on their website.)

Earlier at the ceremony, Airbus presented one-of-only-380, specially branded Mont-Blanc pen to Mr. Seng to start writing the history of the A380, a beautiful gift! The symbolic pen is already in use – as the commercial history of the A380 has begun today and in only 10 days the airplane will take off for its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney only to enroll in scheduled services 3 days later, when a new page in this history will be written again! 

by balint01