GIANT ARRIVAL

THE world's biggest passenger airline, the Airbus A380, paid its first visit to the Balearics yesterday when the Lufthansa-owned double-decker airliner landed at Palma airport yesterday morning.

There was huge expectation at Son San Joan airport ahead of the giant aircraft's inaugural visit and over the past few weeks, a series of alterations were made to the airport in order to be able to handle the monster plane.

The aircraft flew onto Barcelona later yesterday morning before returning again during the afternoon and then flying back to Frankfurt.
Today, the aircraft which can carry up to 800 passengers, will return to Palma. She is due to land at 10.50am before taking off for Madrid at 1.40pm and then returning to Majorca at 4pm. The Airbus will then return home to Frankfurt at 5.30pm.

Lufthansa took delivery of the first of 15 Airbus A380s ordered on May 19 this year and three more will have joined the fleet by the end of this year 2010.

Lufthansa will deploy its new flagship aircraft, which it has been showing off in Spain and Majorca this weekend, on routes to Tokyo, Beijing and Johannesburg.

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS.
The largest passenger airliner in the world, the A380 made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname “Super jumbo” has since become associated with it.

The A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, and its width is equivalent to that of a widebody aircraft.
This allows for an A380-800's cabin with 5'146 square feet (478.1 m2) of floor space; 49% more floor space than the next-largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400 with 3'453 square feet (320.8 m2), and provides seating for 525 people in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in all-economy class configurations. The A380-800 has a design range of 15'200 km (8'200 nautical miles), sufficient to fly from New York to Hong Kong for example, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruising altitude).

Airbus's initial publicity stressed the comfort and space of the A380's cabin, anticipating installations such as relaxation areas, bars, duty-free shops, and beauty salons.

Virgin Atlantic Airways already offers a bar as part of its “Upper Class” service on its A340 and 747 aircraft, and has announced plans to include casinos, double beds, and gymnasiums on its A380s. Singapore Airlines offers twelve partly-enclosed first-class suites on its A380, each featuring one full and one secondary seat, a full-sized bed, desk, and personal storage. Four of these suites, C and D on rows 3 and 4, have dividing walls that can be removed to create two double suites with two beds modified into one double bed.

Qantas Airways has shown a product for a long flat-bed that converts from the seat but does not have privacy doors.
Emirates's fourteen first-class private suites have shared access to two “shower spas”.
First and business class passengers have shared access to a snack bar and lounge with two sofas, in addition to a first-class-only private lounge