AirTravelGenius Blog

If you wish to try out the new Airbus A380 as a passenger you have the following options:

Singapore Airlines - the first airline to fly the A380 commercially, from Singapore to Sydney, Australia. They currently have 4 A380 aircraft in service deployed on various routes:

Singapore to Sydney - Flight SQ 221

Sydney - Singapore Flight SQ 222

London Heathrow to Singapore Flights SQ 317 / SQ 321

Singapore to London Heathrow Flights SQ 318 / SQ 322

Singapore to Tokyo Flight SQ 638

Tokyo to Singapore Flight SQ 637

This week (2nd to 8th Aug) one of the A380s has been flying on the Singapore - Beijing route ahead of the Olympic Games.

Emirates - On 1st August Emirates flew its inaugural A380 service from Dubai DXB to New York JFK. From 8th August they will fly the route as follows:

DXB to JFK Flight EK 201 (Sun / Wed / Fri)

JFK to DXB Flight EK 202 (Sun / Wed / Fri)

Emirates plans to fly the A380 on the Dubai to London Heathrow route from December 2008 and Dubai - Sydney - Auckland from February 2009.

Qantas - Are awaiting delivery of their first A380. They begin service on October 20th 2008 with flight QF 93 from Melbourne to Los Angeles. On October 24th, flight QF 11 will fly from Sydney to Los Angeles. These flights can be booked on Qantas’ website.

Qantas will deploy the A380 on its Sydney to London backbone route in 2009.

If you are based in Sydney you will be spoilt for choice on A380 options.

Next year will also see A380 deliveries to Air France and Lufthansa.

A few readers have asked which airlines are accepting Paypal as a form of payment for buying air tickets. In Europe there is currently only one airline: Monarch Airlines which flies scheduled and charter services around the Med. They are quite well regarded in the industry.

In the US Paypal is more widely used and the following airlines accept it:

Northwest, Southwest, Midwest, Air Tran, US Airways, Delta and Jet Blue.

For Europeans you can buy KLM flights on partner Northwest using Paypal.

In Australia, Air Asia X accepts payment by Paypal - it flies from Gold Coast and Perth to Kuala Lumpur. It will fly from KL to London Stansted from 2009.

Also note that there are occasional “cashback” offers available through Paypal which might get you a small discount off your flight purchase.

You can also invest in the Ultimate Airfares & Upgrades Guide using Paypal.

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines has gone into liquidation and has ceased flying from today. The budget carrier had started flying between London and Hong Kong in October 2006 and later added a service from Hong Kong to Vancouver.

Read more here: Oasis Suspends Flights

Today marks the day when Singapore Airlines‘ first A380 flight arrives at London Heathrow from Singapore. According to BAA’s website flight SQ308 scheduled for 1505 is expected to land at 1444 for arrival at a special gate (’Pier 6′) at terminal 3.

Singapore has been operating the A380 Super Jumbo since October 2007 on flights between Singapore and Sydney, Australia and now has 3 aircraft in service.

If you want to fly on the A380 you can book with Singapore Airlines - return to Singapore from £570. Flights to Australia can be had from £750 return - you can fly out to Oz on the 380 as follows:

Flight SQ 317 Departs LHR 1155, Arrives SIN 0745

Flight SQ 221 Departs SIN 2035, Arrives SYD 0555

This gives you 13 hours to kill at Changi airport - you could head into the city on one of the free tours available.

If you want to return on the A380 you will pay a slight premium which will bump the price to £882.

April 2008 will mark the start of ‘Open Skies‘ which finally deregulates air travel between the EU and the USA. This will mean that any EU or US airline will be able to fly whichever routes they want between the EU and the US - this should result in lower transatlantic fares for the passenger.

Consider London Heathrow where 4 airlines have had a virtual monopoly on flights to the US - British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines and United Airlines. Come April we will see some new routes coming to the market as airlines juggle valuable take-off and landing slots.

Air France-KLM plans to fly from Heathrow to Los Angeles. In addition KLM has given some slots to its US partner Northwest Airlines which will fly from LHR to Detroit, Seattle and Minneapolis.

Fellow SkyTeam carrier Delta Airlines will fly to New York JFK and to its Atlanta hub. Continental Airlines will service New York Newark and Houston.

Meanwhile Star Alliance carrier United will add a route to Denver.

With American Airlines starting a second daily flight from London Stansted to New York from April 2008, plus the all business class airlines EOS and Silverjet (Maxjet having folded recently) there will be plenty of competition which could benefit passengers particularly in business class.

Not to be outdone British Airways is planning its own non-stop flights from mainland Europe to New York. Codenamed ‘Project Lauren’ BA will probably operate flights configured with Club World and premium economy seating from Euro hubs such as Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. (Note, More info here: Open Skies)

One dark cloud on the horizon for airlines and passengers is the high oil price. Having recently touched $100 per barrel, BA, Virgin and United have all raised their fuel surcharges with others to follow soon. Should oil keep rising (and some analysts are predicting $150-$200 oil) then this will increase airfares worldwide.

Silverjet, the all-business class airline has announced today that it is to start flying from London Luton to Dubai (DXB). The daily service will commence from November 18th 2007 and is timetabled as follows:

Luton to Dubai departs 2100, arrives 0830 (+1)
Dubai to Luton departs 1030, arrives 1445

Return prices start from £999 all-in.

Silverjet already operates a twice-daily flight from Luton to New York Newark in competition with other start-ups Maxjet and EOS Airlines. Silverjet uses Boeing 767s configured with 100 seats of 75″ pitch.

The Luton - Dubai flight marks the significant milestone of being the first non Trans-Atlantic all-business class international service.

Read our articles on Silverjet and background on Silverjet

The inaugural flight of the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 ‘Super Jumbo’ will depart for Sydney, Australia from Singapore at 0800 on October 25th. The SYD-SIN return leg leaves at 1600 on October 26th.

Most of the seats have now been sold via an ebay auction which has raised US $1.3 million for charity (a few seats still remain open at time of writing). One bidder paid over US$100,000 for a Suite package while the cheapest economy seat went for only US$560.

However if you missed out on the auction, you will soon be able to experience the A380 on SIA’s Singapore - Sydney scheduled service. The aircraft will start flying on the route (daily return) from Sunday October 28th.

If you want to book, these are the following flight numbers:

Flight SQ221 SIN - SYD (departs 2030, arrives 0700 +1)

Flight SQ220 SYD - SIN (departs 0850, arrives 1345)

There will be 471 seats on board the A380 aircraft: 399 economy class seats, 60 business class seats on the upper deck and 12 first class suites.