View from the Airbus A380 window over Antarctica
The Airbus A380 is an amazing aircraft. Antarctica is an amazing continent. 2010 was the end to an amazing decade. Put them all together and what do you get? One amazing party.
A Qantas Airbus A380 celebrated the New Year by taking 450 lucky folks to the southern most part of the world. The A380 left Melbourne on Thursday afternoon with 24 crew members, passengers and even a jazz band and returned Friday morning, never having to fly in darkness due to being so far south.
This was the 40th Antarctica sight-seeing trip for Captain John Dennis. Previous trips have normally been done in Boeing 747’s, but this was the first time it has been done in the Airbus A380. “Every single flight we do, it’s hard to get the grin off your face. Pictures can’t do it justice. It’s so vast,” Dennis said.
The cheapest ticket was just over $900.00 USD and the most expensive was around $5500.00 USD. To the average person, it might seem silly to pay so much for a flight that goes no where, but as an aviation nerd, that sounds like a good deal. I think I just added a new thing to my “Do Before I Die” list…
You can view more photos of the party onboard via SMH.
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Air Austral Boeing 777-300 (F-OSYD) with a 3-class layout
Air Austral announced at the Dubai Airshow that they plan to buy two Airbus A380 superjumbo jets and configure them with all economy class, fitting about 840 passengers aboard. The airline is planning to fly the sardine-like-airplane between Reunion, France and Paris. They are the first airline to purchase the world’s largest airline in an all economy layout. Most airlines order A380’s in a multi-class seating of about 500 total seats.
Austral Air already has a fleet of 10 aircraft, including 3 ATR-72 and 2 Boeing 737’s that are all economy. However, they also have 5 Boeing 777’s with three class layouts.
It is bad enough waiting for an entire all economy Boeing 737 with about 125 seats in it to empty. I couldn’t imagine the chaos of 840 passengers trying to board, store their carry-ons, sit, and then de-board. No thanks!
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Source: Today in the Sky Image: Paulo974
Emirates Airbus A380
Emirates Airlines received its first Airbus A380 in Hamburg, Germany today. It will be the first of five delivered before March 31, 2010. The airline has a total of 58 A380’s on order (not to mention 60 other aircraft). This aircraft will be on the Dubai to New York route, which will be the first A380 to have a route going into the US.
Source: xinhuanet Image: xinhuanet
