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Tags: A380 / Airplanes / Airplane News / In-Flight Showers / → All Tags

Too Many A380 Features Starting To Annoy Airbus Engineers

Smarty pants kids that dream of becoming aircraft engineers probably have blueprints for flying machines running through their imaginations. However, lacking from their vivid schematics are the plans for in-flight bathrooms, lounges, and sleeper suites. Now that the Airbus A380 is flying around the globe, the airline experience has been so much more, but that’s not something the now grown-up engineers are pleased about.

All these additional customizations that companies like Singapore Airlines and Air France just had to have cause delays, order deferrals, and budgets to go right out the window. It seems that the more airlines want out of the plane, the longer it takes for Airbus to deliver the goods. That’s bad for both the airlines with orders and the airlines without, as it’s slowing down the whole delivery and sales process. Airbus wanted to ship 13 planes by the end of the year; so far they’ve only pushed seven birds out of the nest.

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Tags: Travel Auctions / Air France / A380 / Airline News / Airlines / eBay / → All Tags

Time's Ticking To Bid On The Air France A380 Auction

Time to check the balance in your PayPal account, because there’s only a few days left until bidding ends for the inaugural flight of the A380 on Air France. Prices for the economy seats start at just $380—clever—every day and slowly begin to creep up. However, as of this morning, we were able to see a couple seats that were still $380-ish and several more between $400 and $500. Fares like that are decent deal for a transatlantic crossing on an old plane, but flying across the Atlantic on a jumbo-jumbo makes it almost a steal. Too bad the bids will likely keep on rolling on.

Bidders can choose between the Paris to New York launch on November 20 and the New York to Paris journey on November 21. All proceeds from the auctions will be donated to humanitarian organizations supported by the Air France Foundation. We’re not totally sure if that means you can use your trip as a tax deduction, but we’d definitely check with an authority a little more reliable than TurboTax.

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Tags: A380 / Air France / Travel Auctions / Airline News / Airplane News / Airbus / → All Tags

Will You Bid For A Seat On Air France's Shiny New A380 From JFK?

Details are finally here for that Air France auction we gave you the heads up on in August. Starting today and going through October 21, Air France will be auctioning off tickets for the maiden voyage of their new A380.

The flights will go from NYC to Paris on November 20th and then back on November 21st, but of course the auctions are starting well in advance. Each round of bidding will last 3, 5, 7, or 10 days and all proceeds will go to Air France Foundation charities. You can go to the main auction site for more details.

Ticket winners will be eligible for an array of perks collectively described as an "itinerary of cultural activities and shopping." For the NYC-Paris flight that basically means they'll take you to all kinds of small stores where you can drop your devalued USD's, the upshot being you can tell people their Christmas presents came from "Parisian boutiques." The Paris-NYC flight will also have three "key figures in the world of art and culture," the presence of which will presumably be a boon to star-struck passengers.

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Tags: Airplane News / A380 / Singapore Airlines / Airline News / → All Tags

A Singapore Airlines A380 Returns To Paris After Engine Trouble

A Singapore Airlines flight had to turn back mid-trip on Sunday after one of the engines on the plane—a giant A380 originating in Paris—decided to stop working.

The A380 is an ultra high-capacity airliner, designed by Airbus to compete directly with Boeing's 747 and its successors. It has two decks, four engines, and over 500 seats. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that it was loaded with almost 450 passengers and that they were probably not in the best of spirits after this:

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Tags: New Year's Travel / Antarctica Travel / Qantas / A380 / → All Tags

Celebrate The Dawn Of 2010 In An A380 Over Antarctica

Want to be the first to see the sunrise on New Year's Day 2010? Then get yourself booked onto a flight on the Qantas A380, which will spend New Year's Eve 2009 flying over Antarctica.

A gang called Antarctic Sightseeing Flights are running the trip, which starts in Sydney and will pick up more passengers in Melbourne before heading down in the direction of the South Pole. You'll spend almost 12 hours on board but it's no ordinary flight—they'll have a jazz band playing, a bit of a party atmosphere, and a strict seat rotation policy so that everybody gets their share of the best views.

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Qantas Retires Plane, But Not Because It Exploded

Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man might have said that Qantas never crashed, but these days he'd be changing his tune. This week Aussie airline Qantas announced that they will retire a few of their ageing Boeing 747s in November, and we're not alone in wondering exactly why.

One of the 747s in particular has been labeled "jinxed" after it was involved in a mid-air explosion last year and an engine shutdown this week that forced a diversion to Perth and had the pilot land with only three engines going.

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Tags: Prime-Plane-Spotting-Map / Plane Spotting / LHR / A380 / London Travel / → All Tags

Picnicking and A380 Plane Spotting At London-Heathrow

We love airplanes, you love airplanes, so let's go look at airplanes! In our Prime Plane Spotting series, we'll let you in on all the best spots to whip out your cameras and binoculars for a piece of the aviation action.

Alright, let's talk Airbus A380s for a moment. They are currently like the holy grail of airplanes to be spotted, and although it is totally possible to watch the behemoths during takeoffs and landings as well as on the tarmac, maneuvering their butts around, you've got to do some planning to catch them.

To spot them in action, we recommend popping a squat with your camera outside of London-Heathrow Airport's nearby Tube stop at Hatton Cross. As well as a parking lot and easy connection to the city by underground train, Hatton Cross has a grassy area where diehard plane spotters already spend their weekends propping their telephoto lens-cameras up on tripods and drinking milk tea from a thermos.

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Air France Will Auction Seats On A380 First Flights

What's the reason to buy and fly one of the giant Airbus A380s? Well, profit of course; more seats jammed into one flight means more paying passengers. Alas, this won't be the case when Air France becomes the third airline to trot out their A380.

Just like Singapore Airlines before them, Air France is using their first flight—from Paris-CDG to New York-JFK on November 21—to mainly get publicity by auctioning off 380 of the 538 seats on the flight and the return for charity. We can expect the rest of those seats to probably be press and airline officials.

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Tags: New Routes / A380 / Emirates / Airbus / Toronto / → All Tags

A380 Continues To Conquer The World, But Still Has Leaky Sink

When we last left the biggest bird in the sky, The A380, she was looking to welcome her one-millionth passenger aboard Singapore Airlines. Now she’s looking to continue her world dominance, by initiating service from Toronto to Dubai three times a week starting in June thanks to Emirates. Hopefully the citizens of Canada can provide some life into the Middle East party zone, because all we here about it lately is more and more bad news.

To handle the big beast, Toronto Pearson International Airport had to fix up some of its infrastructure. Over the last 10 years the airport had been sprucing things up, including strengthening and widening the runway. They’ve also got two new double-decker gates that can handle the unloading of almost 500 passengers and their 1,000 pieces of carry on luggage.

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Singapore Airlines Readies Millionth A380 Passenger Party

Flying to Singapore anytime soon? If so, watch out for party balloons and press a la Publisher's Clearing House at your boarding gate because Singapore Airlines is on the lookout for its millionth A380 passenger in February.

To fete the single, clueless guest who puts them into seven figures, the airline will roll out the red carpet with champagne and Singapore Airlines goodies for all passengers on the winning flight. If you just happen to strike gold as Mr. or Ms. 1,000,000, you'll be getting upgraded with a special in-flight package plus a three-night luxury hotel stay, limousine from the airport and meals at nicey nice restaurants.

It seems like only yesterday that Airbus birthed the big baby A380 and we all fantasized about joining the mile high club in their semi-private on-board suites. In actuality, that was already more than a year ago, and we're sure that at least a small percentage of the million passengers did make it past third base at 35,000 feet. Surely they won't deny a simple pleasure to their honored guest?

Related Stories:
· Singapore Airlines Prepares for One Millionth A380 Passenger [Asia Travel Tips]
· No Sex, Please: We're on Singapore Airlines [Jaunted]
· A380 coverage [Jaunted]

[Original photo: asiatraveltips]

Tags: Depressionomics / A380 / Qantas / Australia Travel / Airlines / → All Tags

Qantas Gets More Seats, Just When They Don't Need Them

Back when Qantas first put an order in for some super-sized A380s, they probably saw the grand new planes arriving at the height of a boom in travel to Australia.

Oops. These days Qantas is doing half-price deals to get passengers to fill up its long haul routes--and might be secretly wishing the new A380 they just received in France didn't exist. The airline's second A380 will fly the Melbourne to Los Angeles route starting from December 22.

A third A380 should join the Qantas ranks just after Christmas to fly the Melbourne-Singapore-London route. Qantas should have had a dozen A380s by now if production had run according to schedule, but that would probably just mean even more empty seats. Maybe Qantas has flown into one of those clouds with a silver lining after all.

Related Stories:
· Qantas Receives Second A380 Superjumbo [Jaunted]
· Qantas A380 Takes Off, Flies Just Like the Other Ones [Jaunted]
· Emirates Superjumbos Aim For Down Under [Jaunted]

[Photo: awmolloy]

Tags: No Sleep Till Dubai / Emirates / A380 / A350 / → All Tags

Emirates Pilots Can't Sleep; We Hope A350 Solves Their Problem

Had enough A380 news this year? We think we've almost reached our fill of tales of the new superjumbo, although the complaints from Emirates pilots that the plane runs so quietly they can't sleep definitely amused us. Apparently the sounds of screaming babies, flushing toilets and call buttons being pushed is no longer drowned out by engine noise and the pilots are not impressed.

The overly-quiet problem aside, we think we're ready to move on to the A350. It's the first Airbus plane to be largely constructed from carbon fiber reinforced plastic and should compete against Boeing's 777s and 787s.

Emirates is starting to look ahead to these planes too. They've said they expect to see the final design this February and have ordered 70 of the aircraft already. Hopefully the new design makes the A350 noisy enough for the pilots to sleep. And yep, we know that sentence doesn't make sense--obviously Emirates pilots are a special breed.

Related Stories:
· Emirates Air Expects A350 Design By Feb '09 [CNN]
· A380 Is Too Quiet Say Sleepless Pilots [The Age]
· Emirates coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: hartlandmartin]