Qantas to take delivery of first A380 superjumbo on 19 September
07 Aug 2008
Australia's Qantas Airways is to take delivery of its first Airbus A380 on 19 September, making it the third airline to induct the superjumbo in its fleet after launch customer Singapore Airlines and recently Gulf carrier, Emirates.
In a statement Qantas said it will ''welcome its first A380 aircraft into the Qantas fleet at a ceremony at Airbus' Toulouse factory and fly it via Singapore to Sydney, where it will land on Sunday morning, 21 September''.
It had already announced that it would put its first A380 into service on 20 October, between Melbourne and Los Angeles.
Qantas has 20 A380s on order, three of which will be delivered by the end of 2008.
Meanwhile every new A380 delivery is arousing much curiosity as to its likely configuration.
Emirates caused much interest for the fact that it was offering two showers for its first class passengers.
Qantas had said earlier that laptop power will be available in every seat of its new Airbus A380s, including standard economy. It had also said that it would offer wireless Internet throughout the A380, as well as web and email access via seat-back inflight entertainment systems.
Premium economy seats would feature USB and RJ45 (ethernet) ports. The USB ports will be used for "viewing of content" on the inflight entertainment system. It would also allow recharging of USB-powered devices.
