Qantas Airways starts selling seats for first flight of Airbus A380 Superjumbo

Qantas, the national airline and flag-carrier of Australia, started selling, on June 16, 2008, seats for the first flight on the airline’s new Airbus A380 Superjumbo. Airbus A380 is the world’s largest passenger aircraft. The first flight of Qantas’ Airbus A380 – from Melbourne in Australia to Los Angeles in the United States – is scheduled to take place on October 20, 2008.

Qantas will operate two weekly  services with Airbus A380 to Los Angeles from October 24, 2008, one from Melbourne and the other from Sydney, Australia. It will then be increased to 5 weekly services once the airline receives its second Superjumbo in November 2008, a statement from Qantas said.

The Airbus A380 Superjumbo that Qantas will fly will have a total of 450 seats – 14 individual ‘first suites,’ 72 in business class, 32 in ‘premium economy’ class, and 332 in economy class.

The offerings of luxury on board Qantas’ Airbus A380 Superjumbo include a fully-flat Skybed in business lass,  extra wide Recaro seats in Premium Economy class and self-service refreshment bars in Economy class. There will also be an entertainment system with over 1,000 entertainment options as well as onboard connectivity

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-bodied, 4-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS.) This largest passenger airliner in the world, nicknamed Superjumbo, made its maiden flight on April 27, 2005, from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on October 25, 2007, from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines.

The A380’s upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage. This allows for a cabin with 50% more floor space than the next-largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400, and provides seating for 525 people in standard 3-class configuration, or up to 853 people in all-economy class configuration.

Airbus offers its Superjumbo in both passenger version and freighter version.

Emirates Airlines will buy its first A380 in July 2008, with services scheduled to begin on August 1, 2008, with a flight from Dubai to New York.

Rob Gurney, Qantas’ general manager of sales and distribution, was quoted by the website theage.com.au as saying: “The A380 would offer significant improvements in terms of environmental performance, including reduced fuel consumption and emissions. Fares for the A380 flights would initially be the same as those for comparable flights on Qantas Boeing 747s. However, the ‘first suites’ on the A380 would be more expensive, with prices for a return Melbourne-Los Angeles $23,280, compared to $21,022 for non-A380 first-class seats.”