First Suite Passengers

Chew called the A380 the new "queen of the skies," and many of the passengers on the plane would probably have agreed with that assessment not long into the flight.

"It's incredible," said Julie Elwood, as she and her husband, Tony, relaxed and sipped $1,000-a-bottle red wine in side-by-side beds in their adjoining luxury suites in the front of the main deck.

"This has far surpassed my expectations," she said. "They (the airline) have outdone themselves."

Her husband agreed. "How do we go back from this?" he said of the first-class seats on other airlines that convert into sleeper beds.

There are 12 of the pumpkin-colored leather bedroom suites on the A380, featuring actual fold-down beds, as well as a chaise longue and a 23-inch LCD entertainment screen.

Some of the suites can be joined with a double bed. Sliding doors and roller blinds give almost total privacy.

Tony Elwood, 75, who was born in Australia, and his wife, who was born in Vancouver, B.C., paid $50,000 on the eBay auction for adjoining suites, which were designed by French yachting designer Jean-Jacques Coste.

Julie Elwood, 51, said the designer made terrific use of a small amount of space, which is typical of what is found on luxury yachts.

The couple travels a lot, spending half the year in Australia and the other half on one of the Gulf Islands, Quadra, in British Columbia.

Asked why they bid so much for the suites, Elwood replied: "The best answer is because we could."

He later added: "There is nothing wrong with making money. You just have to learn what it's for -- having bloody fun!"

His wife echoed that view.

"Many of our friends think we are crazy, but they would love to be here," she said.

Three of the first-class luxury suites were occupied by William Leong, his brother and his 91-year-old father, Leong Lou Teck, the oldest person on the plane.

William Leong, a Singapore businessman, now runs the export company that grew out of his father's small watch-repair business. He said he wanted to get his father on the flight to show respect for all that his father, a Chinese immigrant, had done for him and the family. His father boarded the plane in a wheelchair.

He paid a total of $56,000 for the three suites, as well as two business-class seats for relatives and a seat in economy for his father's nurse.

In cabin A1, the first of the A380 suites, was Julian Hayward, a Briton who now lives in Australia. He paid $100,380 for two suites for himself and a friend.

He made millions when he sold his U.K. company Direct Connection and retired five years ago. He's now 38 and said he has yet to find anything else to be passionate about other than working with charities. On the plane he wore a white golf shirt with "Mapendo" across the front. He said it is a charity for refugees in Kenya.

He said he didn't mind spending so much money to be on the A380 because all the money went to charity.

The eBay auction for seats on both legs of the roundtrip to Sydney raised $1.3 million. Chew said every dollar would go to charity -- a third to Doctors Without Borders, a third to children's hospitals in Sydney and a third to charities in Singapore.

Exxon Mobil Corp. donated the fuel.

In addition to charities, Hayward has spent some of his money to pay for such things as a ride to the edge of space in a Russian-made Mig-25 fighter jet.

Before and during the flight he was treated like royalty. Hayward was first to board the jet in Singapore, and he and his friend received a personal tour of the cockpit before takeoff from Capt. Robert Ting, chief A380 pilot for Singapore Airlines.

"It's been a hell of a party," Hayward said not long before the plane landed at the Sydney airport.

With the exception of limited access to the first-class suites, passengers could roam the two decks of the A380, which has 471 seats -- 60 business-class seats on the upper deck and 399 economy seats behind business and across the lower deck starting just aft of the suites.

Some of those 471 seats were empty, in both business and coach. The airline's only explanation was there were some "no shows." Those who bought their seats on eBay and did not make the flight will not receive a refund. Their money went to the charities.

Several people who bought the prized A380 seats tried to resell them on eBay for a profit. One of them was from Seattle. This man lost his seat eight minutes after he tried to resell it on eBay, according to a spokesman for Singapore Airlines.

Passenger Feedback

Many passengers had cameras and camcorders and took pictures of just about everything on the plane, including the food.

Singapore Airlines flight SQ380 carried a mix of passengers representing 35 different nationalities, with the largest group being Australians (28 percent), then Singaporeans (14 percent), Britons (11 percent) and Americans (8 percent).

Four passengers from Norway came the farthest to fly on the jet.

Passengers included a U.S. college student who celebrated his 22nd birthday on the plane and a Swedish engineer who was on the first flight of the supersonic Concorde in 1976.

Francisco Miramontes, 43, of Mexico, collected signatures of the passengers in a special book.

He has flown over a million miles with Singapore Airlines and other airlines in the Star Alliance.

He bought roundtrip seats in economy for himself and his sister and a nephew. The A380 returns to Singapore on Friday morning.

"This is a special, unique occasion. Once in a lifetime," he said. "This is the new queen."

Friends Oscar Garcia and Chris Sloan came from Miami to be on the flight.

Garcia is a former 747 pilot for Cathay Pacific. He met Sloan some years ago when Sloan was allowed to visit the cockpit on a Cathay Pacific flight.

"He knew more about the 747 than I did," Garcia recalled.

Sloan, a TV producer, has a large collection of airline memorabilia and runs airchive.com.

During the flight, he and Sloan debated the merits of the A380 vs. Boeing's 747-8.

After the flight, they planned to go to a party at a bar in Sydney where the front end, or head, of a 747 was supposed to be chopped off in honor of the A380's arrival in Sydney.

Alykhan Virani, from Vancouver, B.C., got roundtrip economy seats on the plane for only $700 each.

He writes an aviation blog, planenation.com.

"It is quiet and spacious," Virani said of the A380, adding that he liked the cabin design over that of the lower deck of the 747.

"This does not feel like a big plane at all," he said.

Bulkheads on the upper and lower decks of the A380 break up the economy and business class cabins into smaller sections.

One passenger, Thomas Lee, was 17 years old in 1970 when his father bought tickets for the family to ride on the inaugural Pan Am 747 flight from New York to London.

On the A380 flight, Lee, a Southern California businessman, was the special guest of Singapore Airlines. But like his father had done 37 years ago, Lee bought tickets for his wife, Sally, and his daughter, Briana, 23, to fly with him. They were all seated next to each other in economy on the lower deck, though they spent much of the flight walking through the two decks and being interviewed by media.

Like many of the other passengers, Lee marveled at how quiet the A380 cabin was, from takeoff to landing.

"It's a leap forward," he said of the A380.

He especially liked the spacious upper deck.

Chew said the upper deck of the A380 is wider than the cabin of the 777. The airline has the same business class seats on its 777-300ERs as are on the A380, but those on the A380 are a little wider.

Chew presented Lee with framed side-by-side certificates of Lee's flight on the 747 in 1970 and Thursday's flight on the A380.

Business-class passenger Jason Speer had to fly a long way just to make the A380 flight. He came from Chicago.

Speer, 32, of Streamwood, Ill., is vice president of manufacturing for Quality Float Works. The company, family-owned since it was founded in Chicago in 1915, makes hollow metal balls and other devices for measuring levels.

Speer paid $9,250 for a seat on both legs of the A380 flight.

An aviation buff from childhood, Speer said he was prepared to pay more, as much as $15,000.

"This was an incredible opportunity to be on the first commercial flight of this enormous new plane," he said. "I was determined to be a part of it."

Speer flies about 150,000 miles a year on business, and used frequent flier miles on the flights from Chicago to Singapore via Los Angeles.

In an interview before the flight, Speer recalled all the talk that the A380 would be a "cruise ship of the sky" when Airbus first began developing the plane. There was talk of showers, gyms, lounges, duty-free shops and other passenger amenities, he recalled.

Speer said he would be disappointed if there was not something special to make the flying experience of the A380 unique. Otherwise, Speer said, he probably would not want to fly in such a huge plane, going through customs and getting baggage with nearly 500 fellow passengers.

Later, near the end of the flight, Speer said he was impressed with the A380 and liked the business-class seat he was in. But he did not believe it was worth the premium that Singapore Airlines will charge first and business-class passengers.

During the flight, Speer and the passenger seated next to him, Tony Mackay from Sydney, discussed whether they would want to fly in the A380 on a regular business trip. Mackay, managing director of Instinet, an electronic stock trading company, said he makes about 100 flights a year.

"You don't want to be the last person off this airplane," Mackay said. "Just the thought of 500 bags coming down a carousel ... ."

The arrival of the A380 at the Sydney airport was a huge event.

In early August, a large clock was placed at the airport to count down the days until the inaugural flight landed.

Australian newspapers ran countless stories about the A380, which will soon be a familiar sight in the country. Singapore, Qantas and Emirates all will be flying the plane in and out of Australia.

About 45 minutes before landing, Capt. Ting informed passengers that the plane would be making a low-level pass over Sydney's famous harbor. But a low cloud cover made that impossible and the plane landed at 5:23 p.m., two minutes early.

Before they left the plane, passengers were told that the baggage of first- and business-class passengers would be on a separate carousel from that of passengers in economy.

Getting through customs was fairly quick -- there were 22 customs stations to speed the process.

Baggage for first- and business-class passengers came down the carousel about 10 minutes before the bags from economy started showing up. Shortly after 6 p.m., some 30 minutes after the A380 arrived at the gate, economy-class passengers were taking their bags off the carousel, shaking hands with new friends from the plane ride and walking away.

"I wish all flights could be like that," said Brown, the passenger from Salt Lake City.

First Official Passenger Flight

First Flight

A new era dawned in aviation Thursday when the Airbus A380, some 18 months late but creating the kind of buzz not heard in passenger jet travel in nearly 40 years, made its maiden commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney, Australia.

Painted in the gold and blue livery of Singapore Airlines, the plane that Airbus has called the flagship of the 21st century carried 35 crew members, including four pilots, and 455 passengers, some of whom paid a bundle in an online auction for seats on the historic flight -- more than $100,000 in one case.

When the A380 lifted off from Singapore's Changi Airport at 8:15 a.m. local time, it officially took the title from Boeing's 747 as the biggest commercial jetliner, a crown the world's first jumbo had proudly worn as the queen of the skies since entering service with Pan American World Airways in 1970.

"This is one of those times when no one is in a hurry for the plane to get there. I think we all just want the experience to last," Everen Brown of Salt Lake City said about halfway through the 7 1/2-hour flight.

Although he was in a coach seat on the lower deck, Brown was so impressed that he was hoping to change his return flight to Singapore in a few days and take the A380 back instead of a 747-400.

Like many on the A380, Brown loves airplanes and aviation. He was on the first Boeing 777 that entered commercial service with United Airlines in 1995. He was also on the final flight of the Concorde from Canada.

Regular daily service with the A380 between Singapore and Sydney will begin Sunday, with the plane replacing one of three 747-400s now used on that route.

This is the only A380 that will be delivered in 2007. Singapore Airlines will get its second and third A380s in January and February next year. They will be used on the popular Singapore-London route, making it possible to travel on an A380 between Sydney and London, the so-called Kangaroo route.

The airline's remaining three planes in 2008 will be used to expand its service to Tokyo, Hong Kong and San Francisco.

Singapore Airlines will have a lot of time to brag in advertising campaigns that it is the only airline operating the A380. Emirates won't get the first A380 until August, followed by Qantas.

Singapore Airlines Chief Executive Officer Chew Choon Seng, seated in the last row of business seats on the upper deck, applauded and cheered with other passengers on both decks as the plane's wheels lifted off the runway in Singapore, the four Rolls-Royce engines making so little noise in the cabin that one of the passengers near Chew later called the takeoff "so quiet it was eerie."

In an interview a short while into the flight, Chew said the Airbus A380 represents the future, and The Boeing Co.'s 747 the past.

"The 747 has seen its better days," and that probably includes the bigger and more efficient 747-8 that Boeing is now developing, he said. "The A380 has changed the game."

With the introduction of the A380, Airbus finally has the plane that it has long wanted to challenge the monopoly enjoyed by Boeing for nearly 40 years with the 747, but the development of the A380 has been a long and difficult journey highlighted in the last couple of years by soaring costs and lengthy delays.

And it has played out against the backdrop of a bitter dispute between the European Union and the United States over government help to fund the A380 development, as well as the uncertain and sometimes confusing response from Boeing about what, if anything, it would do with the 747 to make it bigger and more competitive.

Just before takeoff, Chew was in his 34-inch-wide seat checking the many congratulatory messages on his Blackberry. One was from John Leahy, the Airbus sales chief who made the A380 deal with Chew. But another was from a Boeing jetliner sales executive. Singapore Airlines is an important Boeing customer and operates the world's largest fleet of 777s. It has ordered the 787 Dreamliner.

But the airline passed on the 747-8 in favor of more A380s. It will eventually have 19 in its fleet.

Premium Air Travel

As more airlines upgrade their first class offerings with soft sheets, big beds and a lot more privacy, the jet set may just be tempted to fly commercial.

On Thursday, Singapore Airlines unveiled its new first-class suites on flights from Singapore to Sydney. The top-of-the-line accommodations on the airline's new Airbus 380 superjumbo jet take flying to a whole new level.

As more high-net worth travelers take on fractional jet ownership or even splurge on their own Gulfstreams, this is the latest attempts on by commercial carriers to lure big spenders back with luxurious perks like Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon.

And Singapore Airlines has spared no expense.

Each of the 12 roomy suites in the front of the plane has a chaise lounge so guests can curl up and watch one of 100 movies on their 23-inch widescreen LCD TV, or listen to a selection of CDs with accompanying Bose headsets.

And gone are the days of pushing the seat back when you want a snooze. There's a standalone full-sized bed that folds down, with a plush mattress and a Givenchy-designed duvet.

The suites in the center row have double beds roomy enough for two. The amenities kit furnished by Salvatore Ferragamo features his latest fragrance to create a little atmosphere.

Of course if you're more focused on business than pleasure, the television also comes with a keyboard and a suite of office applications so passengers can plug a thumb-drive into the USB port and get to work.

"It's a class beyond first," according to a spokesman for the company -- with a price tag to match. A roundtrip ticket from Singapore to Sydney on the A380 will set you back $7,350 (including tax) -- a 15 percent premium over the standard first class fare of $6,400.

While Singapore Airlines may be breaking ground with a new level of luxury, it's not the first airline to upgrade its first class offerings.

"First class is getting ever more plush, ever more private, ever more luxurious," according to Peter Frank, editor in chief of Concierge.com.

Indian carrier Jet Airways also recently unveiled eight private suites aboard its Boeing 777-300ER. As part of the airline's $3.7 billion expansion, Jet Airways has added service between Mumbai and New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But a first-class round-trip ticket from Newark to the Indian city is $10,080.

Ten grand gets you a suite separated from the main cabin by sliding double doors with mood lighting, a whopping 7-foot long bed, a 23" flatscreen TV, storage closets and work table that doubles as a dining table a deux.

When hunger strikes, the fare includes both Indian and international meals -- all served on hand painted porcelain -- coupled with top-of-the-line wines and vintage champagnes. Not to mention an extensive assortment of Single Malt Whiskeys poured into crystal cocktail glasses.

On the new Emirates A340-500, there are 12 first-class cabins fit for a king, outfitted in leather and walnut with gold accents.

Beyond their rooms, passengers have plenty of space to move about the cabin (thanks in part to a lack of overhead storage bins), hit the communal bar and mingle with the other royal guests if they're feeling social.

If not, the suites are equipped with a personal mini-bar and meals or movies can be ordered on demand from a hand-held remote. The plush leather seat reclines to become a fully-flat bed at the press of a button. There are also buttons to close the doors to your suite and illuminate a 'do not disturb' sign. Once safe and sealed inside, the walls are even insulated to reduce noise.

But at over $10,000 a ticket, few will actually get to enjoy the perks of this new level of first.

"The front of the cabin will get fancier, plusher and frillier while the back of the bus will remain the back of the bus," Frank said.

For the rest us, sequestered in economy with a bag of pretzels and a coke, dozing off for the duration of the flight may remain just a dream.

Coming Soon:
www.PremiumAirTravel.com
www.PremiumClassFlights.com
www.SupremeClass.com
www.SuiteClass.com

Suite Class

With the arrival of the first Airbus A380, Singapore Airlines offer a new service called ' A Class Above First', better to be known as Suite Class, with other new airlines receiving back ordered A380 aircrafts, and luxury air travel becoming a new trend in the aviation business.
I will soon be teaming up with these companies to review and offer the best deals on 'Suite Fares'.

www.SuiteClass.com will be the preview site with great stories, interviews, reviews and more.
The site will be partnered with www.SuiteFares.com your online ticket agent, complete with all available routes and the best available pricing and deals.

For more info, business opportunities, and newsletter inquiries please contact: Kevin@can.am

First Post

Welcome to the A380 Blog, Since this plane is so new I am very interested to find out as much as I can, Check back often to see what great news I've come up with!