Dreaming of first class on the A380

[romano]

Though CNET News.com's Daniel Terdiman already covered the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 in his blog, as a fellow aviation nut, I just had to weigh in on the aircraft's interior. This morning I drooled over the photos taken by Luke Anderson from ZDNet Australia on his tour of the Singapore Airlines A380 in Sydney (where can I get that gig?). The pictures of the economy class section are nice, but let's be honest, who really likes economy class? Frankly, I'm more excited about those luxury suites in first class. And who wouldn't be?


A380 business class

(Credit: Luke Anderson/ZDNet Australia)
The luxury suites are self-contained compartments on the lower deck of the plane. Though the roof is exposed the suites have sliding doors to keep out nosy neighbors. Inside each suite is a leather seat (more like an arm chair, actually) that coverts to a perfectly flat bed. And if you book adjoining compartments, the center divider can be lowered to make adjoining beds (talk about your mile-high club). On-demand entertainment is shown on a 23-inch LCD while additional amenities include a vanity mirror, storage galore and all the food and drink you can imagine.

Sadly, I doubt I'll get to fly in such luxury for some time; a random fare check showed a price of $7,500 for a round trip Singapore to Sydney ticket. So far, my only view of the A380 was from the ground when it made a low pass over San Francisco earlier this month. I suppose I could snag an 34-inch-wide expansive business class seat if I'm lucky; those are a more reasonable $3,700. But as I said earlier this year I'd sit on a cardboard box just for the privilege of riding on the world's newest airliner. And I say that as (like Daniel) a loyal 747 fan.
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[DaveLock]

Are you buying breakfast cereal that has A380 stories on the box, romano?

Lots of A380 info-mercial posts.

[romano]

Heheheh, how do you come up with that idea lol, hehe i dont buy a cereal like that! Just reading the net sir heheh... Sometimes i summarize them up heheh... Marami ba ako pinost? heheh

[Tonet]

This obsession with the A380 is bizarre.

When the B747 came out, it was nearly twice as big as the B707 and the DC8.

The B777, A330 and F-16 had fly-by-wire long before the whale.

So it's only claim to fame is big.

And two years late.

And it almost brought the company down.

This is a cause for celebration?



Think this:

15-inch wide seats. For 16 hours. Seat back in front of you reclined right into your face. You can't get at the iPod, laptop, books and magazines crammed into the seatback pocket, and your shoes disappeared somewhere under row 57.

Locked into this crammed aluminum box with 800 other people, screaming infants, bad odor and the unwashed.

Locked in, an hour before departure. (How early do you think they will have to start loading 800 people? With just 300 they already start 40 minutes before pushback.)

People already shifting uncomfortably, wrestling for armrest space, fighting over the airconditioning vents. Roll-aboard bags being hefted into overflowing bins.

800 meals have to be served every 4 hours. Your boarding pass says, incredibly, that you are in seat "126 P". The line in the aisles to get to your seat is nearly the length of a football field. Everyone has roll-aboard bags that need to be stored. There are 9 people to every row. Everyone is weightlifting bags, looking for blankets, going back against the flow because they missed their row.

The length of a football field.

You have been standing with your bag for 35 minutes, and you have moved 8 feet. You are abeam row 12. Your seat is 126P.

You still have 16 hours to go. The airplane has not even moved yet, and you are already completely exhausted.

You are on your way to a vacation.

Geez.




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[darrell]

sa 1513 na lang ako... pag sakay larga kaagad...

[Sky Gazer]

You have been standing with your bag for 35 minutes, and you have moved 8 feet. You are abeam row 12. Your seat is 126P.

Exactly my point in another thread. A-380 ready? Come on, get serious!

While the first and business class may be good, have you seen the proposed cattle class on those things? It's even worse than the ones on the 747s and A340s!

Good thing for SQ that they didn't opt to go the full 850 seating arrangement and instead followed the same thing they currently have with their 747-400 (3-4-3 seating) which reduced the capacity to about 400+.

It would really suck to be in the middle of a 4-seat row with a coughing person on your left and another with a bad case of body odor on your right. And lucky you, you have a cute little bundle of mischief sitting right behind you who insists on expressing his discomfort by pounding on the back of your headrest. Then the captain announces "cabin crew prepare for takeoff please". Yippee! Only 15.4 hours to go.

moo!



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[Tonet]

Then a passenger doesn't show up, and they have to offload his bags. With a couple of thousand bags on board it will take an hour. The gate agent is still trying to page the missing passenger, but with two decks and hundreds of rows there is no hope of finding a passenger who boarded, never mind one who is missing.

The problem with flying in airplanes that are as big as trains and ships is that on real trains and ships weight is not as critical as it is on an airplane.

So trains and ships are staffed properly, with hundreds of attendants to make sure that passengers are treated like customers instead of cattle.




I MUCH rather take the TGV or the Orient Express, have a drink in the saloon car, meet people in the dining car and have a proper meal where you can actually taste the food, stretch your legs, walk leisurely back to your sleeper cabin with a book.

The travel time would probably be shorter, given that there is no 3-hour-check-in rule, and no security gates with metal detectors and you don't have to queue up with 800 other people just to give up your boarding pass at the gate.

At the Gare Invalides or the S-Bahn on Alexanderplatz or the magnetic train station in Shanghai you just step off the train from one of scores of doors, walk down the station platform and out into the street.




An hour into the flight you try to watch a movie, but hundreds of windows remain open and it's like trying to watch in a greenhouse.

The meal cart struggles down the aisle, and if you have to go to the lav the stew has to back the cart out half a mile before you can get past it.


Mooooo!




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[DaveLock]

... Locked into this crammed aluminum box with 800 other people ...

... Good thing for SQ that they didn't opt to go the full 850 seating arrangement and instead followed the same thing they currently have with their 747-400 (3-4-3 seating) which reduced the capacity to about 400+ ...

There never was an 850 seat option. That was a marketing pipe dream.

And now there never will be because the wings are only rated to carry 550pax. The reason that's now been further derated to a maximum of 520 odd pax is because instead of the engineers using the time between 1st flight & production using flight data to shave weight off (a common practice), they had to sort the wiring problems out, so the airplane is still flying heavy.

This never will carry more than the 520 odd pax in general service without a complete wing redesign & recertification, & a lot of weight shaved off.

[jerry]

I second your moooo-tion.

[iyoy]

sa 1513 na lang ako... pag sakay larga kaagad...

You cannot leave immediately because the lady who keeps the keys is not around because it's a Sunday. Fortunately, the mechanics, if you find them, have a spare. You also have to finish your beers on the ground before you takeoff because the finicky owner will not allow you to toss out beer cans in flight for fear of the beer cans denting the soda can fuselage.

[Tonet]

It's a good thing the finicky owner has his own keys... .


Tip: The finicky owner's son also now has his own keys. You just need to find him!


The mechanics have a spare set??? Holy cow! I better check my Hobbs meter, huh?


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[Kevin]

The mechanics have a spare set??? Holy cow! I better check my Hobbs meter, huh?


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Oh, that's been disconnected. Or running backwards.

[Tonet]

REALLY???


No wonder I keep logging less and less time!


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[tim_blanco]

[chrislim]

[Kenneth]

REALLY???


No wonder I keep logging less and less time!


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Did you notice, that your car's odometer is also going backwards? They've overdone it.

Mechanic: "You weren't here sir, your odometer is less than 10 kilometers today than yesterday."

[MArk]

i simply miss the humor in this forum....