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.