Champagne, lobster plus A380 hoopla
ON BOARD FLIGHT SQ380 - The world’s largest jetliner made aviation history Thursday, completing its first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455 passengers, some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds.
During the seven-hour journey on the Airbus superjumbo, flight attendants handed out champagne and certificates to passengers, some of whom paid tens of thousands of dollars in an online auction for seats that raised $1.26 million for charity.
“I have never been in anything like this in the air before in my life,” said Australian Tony Elwood, reclining with his wife, Julie, on the double bed in their private first-class suite.
“It is going to make everything else after this simply awful,” he said, sipping Dom Perignon champagne after a lunch of marinated lobster and double-boiled chicken soup. He paid $50,000 for the two places.
The seven-story-tall Airbus double-decker A380 ends the nearly 37-year reign of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet as the world’s most spacious passenger plane. It is capable of carrying 853 passengers in an all-economy-class configuration.
The A380 was delivered to Singapore Airlines on Oct. 15, nearly two years behind schedule after billions of dollars in cost overruns for Airbus.
Still, the wait was worth it, says Singapore Airlines, which has exclusivity of being the sole operator of the superjumbo for 10 months.