AirTravelGenius Blog

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.

There are some reasonable London to Los Angeles business class airfares on the market currently. With the demise of Maxjet who flew the route for under £1,000 and with the prospect of Open Skies bringing more competition let’s take a quick look:

Air France will begin a service from London Heathrow to LAX from April. You can pick up a return ticket for £1,800 in business class (£320 in economy) for travel during April. We also found an Expedia Special Fare with Air France of £1,650.

A few other airlines are pitching their business class products at this £1,800 level. You can presently find deals with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, United Airlines and Air New Zealand. BA and Virgin have sales bookable until March 4th to a variety of destinations.

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.

All business class airline Silverjet is running its “Very Sivilised Sale”.

Flights from London Luton to both New York Newark and Dubai are available for £879 return, all-inclusive. (Normal prices are £999)

Bookings must be made by January 31st 2008 for travel up to October 31st 2008.

Oasis Hong Kong are currently offering a new year deal on London Gatwick to Hong Kong flights. Returns are available from £336 all-in (economy) and £1196 all-in (business class).

You must book by December 15th and travel between January 6th and March 12th 2008. Checking their site we found it was a little difficult to find the £336 deal (only a few dates are available) but the biz class offer is easily found.

British Airways currently has a Club World Sale with 41 destinations worldwide on offer from London. Here are a few examples of pricing:

New York £1199
Washington Dulles £1299
Boston £1299
Chicago £1499
Los Angeles £1699
Denver £1749

Cairo £999
Abu Dhabi £1159
Delhi £1284
Tokyo £1699
Hong Kong £1714
Singapore £1892

These flights should be booked by November 27th. Travel dates vary for each destination, generally from December to March.

Virgin Atlantic have a similar Upper Class Fare Sale (12 destinations available) also bookable by November 27th for travel in December and January. Prices are similar to BA.

So there are currently plenty of options if you want to travel cheaply from London to the US in business class in the next few months - with the all business class carriers like Maxjet and Silverjet and these sales from BA and Virgin. With Open Skies coming in 2008, the market should continue to hot up.

For those in the UK not on a biz class budget, BA also has an economy fare sale (30% off) to many destinations worldwide with the option to upgrade to World Traveller Plus (premium economy) for an extra fee. Available until November 13th.

Book a London / New York return trip on EOS Airlines (spending a minimum of £1,000 / $1,998) and EOS will give you the option of purchasing an extra flight at £300 / $750 each way (certain dates in November) or £500 / $999 each way (dates in December and early January).

Book the Nov flights by Novemebr 9th, the Dec-Jan flights by November 23rd.

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.

All-business class EOS Airlines is offering a free companion ticket between London and New York if you book a roundtrip ticket (7 day advanced fare basis ‘SRT7CMA’ which costs $4999/£2495 plus taxes and charges).

Book by September 5, valid for travel between September 1 and November 30 2007. Companion must travel with the paying passenger.

The promo code for this offer is BOCO1.

Alternatively, if you book a flight on EOS up to August 31st, you can receive either 45,000 points in their Frequent Flyer program Club 48 (or an Apple 80GB Video iPod®). Note, 80,000 points are needed for a free one-way ticket so you will need to take 5 qualifying flights to get a free ticket.