Airbus A380 defines premium avian travel, takes luxury to new heights
Posted on July 18, 2011, Monday
KUALA LUMPUR: Imagine having your feet up on a luxurious stool or getting a massage at a ‘five-star hotel lounge armchair’ while on board a plane 38,000 feet up in the sky.
Sounds futuristic? Not really, if you have travelled on one of the 51 Airbus A380 planes presently doing their trips around the world, specifically in its first class; or what has been tagged as the ‘beyond first class’ cabin.
The luxury of space that comes with the wide-bodied, world’s largest and most advanced passenger plane for now, the A380, allows for precisely such features to make a new generation of premium air travel a current reality.
Over 12 million people are said to have already enjoyed the A380 travel experience; and this figure is expected to continue to rise if the latest order for 12 of the triple-decked – including cargo/baggage hold – A380s worth US$4.5 billion (about RM13.53 billion) at last month’s Paris Air Show is taken into account.
“The airlines using the A380 can customise their cabin and seating arrangements any which way they see fit.
“They could expand the seating, lounging; and yes, even private fine dining area whether in the first class cabin or business class as wished by them,” said James Williams, A380’s senior marketing analyst to Malaysian journalists during a visit of the interior of a mock Airbus 380 at Airbus’ headquarters in Toulouse, France.
The visit was part of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Media Familiarisation Trip to France recently, where MAS signed several deals at the Paris Air Show 2011 including the purchase of airplanes as part of its fleet modernisation plan.
“One airline has kept its first class cabin entirely on the upper deck complete with a lounge area, while another has mixed the options having its first class both on the main and upper deck,” Williams said, as some highly impressed journalists fiddled with the massage buttons of a seat in the business class cabin.
MAS, which would be taking delivery of its first A380 mid-next year, said it would introduce a new class of travel, premium economy class, on its A380.
The plane would most likely to be used on the Kuala Lumpur-London route.
Commenting on the aircraft during an earlier tour of the A380 plant in Toulouse where MAS’ first A380 was undergoing the final assembly, MAS managing director and chief executive officer, Tengku Datuk Seri Azmil Zahruddin said the airline’s purchase of the A380 would cement its position as a premier airline service provider.
He also said the plane would be the best it would have on its fleet.
Just what was the technology that would give flight to a body of such enormous proportion, a question was posed to Keith Stonestreet, director of A380 product marketing, who provided a rundown of the A380 assembly plant in Toulouse where 10 A380s were manufactured by Airbus a month.
“It’s all in the advanced aerodynamics of Airbus,” said Stonestreet.
Besides giving the lift, the huge tail wing of the A380, flying on a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine, would also hold the technology for the intelligent storage and distribution of fuel, contributing to the high fuel efficiency enjoyed by the airliner, he said.
The plane’s advanced aerodynamics and technologies had resulted in some of the attributes that separate the A380 from the rest.
They included the reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint that came with its high fuel efficiency, a longer range of 15,300-kilometre/8,300-nanometre, a maximum capacity of 853 passengers, the quietest cabin in the sky and a plane that would require a shorter runway to take off and land.
An EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) company, the leading aircraft manufacturer, which spends billions of euros on research and development, was already looking at how people would be travelling in the year 2050.
Visitors to the Paris Air Show were introduced to the Airbus ‘Concept Cabin’ and the opportunity to experience the Airbus’ ‘Future of Flight Film’ – a planetarium movie showcasing future innovations in air travel.
The Concept Cabin would project how personalised zones would replace traditional cabin classes; and how, apart from the technologies to reduce fuel burn, emissions, waste and noise, passengers could expect more intelligent, eco– and health–friendly features that would give them a voyage as enjoyable as their destination; and also of the possibility of travelling in a transparent plane that would allow them to view all the panorama outside the plane.
– Bernama
