|
|
First report from the Emirates A380Singapore was first, but now Emirates is in the superjumbo club. Richard Green was on its inaugural flight to London For the rest of us mere mortals, there’s the slim hope that our days of cattle-class flying might be over. With 50% more floor space than a 747, this A380 is configured with only 35% more seats — 489 seats in total. Its not as good as Singapore’s 471, but it’s still roomier than what we’re used to. On the inaugural flight into London, I began in business. Up on top deck, the interior width is similar to that of other wide-bodied aircraft, but with seats in an interlocking pattern, 1-2-1 across. They all recline flat and have a personal minibar (soft drinks, no booze), but the layout makes choosing the right seat vital. Some of the window seats are a couple of feet from the fuselage, and in every other row the centre seats are a few feet apart, so not good for conversation. Other than that, the seats are fairly standard business-class, flat-bed stuff, albeit with a roomy side table. The bar is the big innovation on the premium deck. The width of the plane, it has a couple of curvy leather sofas along each wall and a big screen showing a live map of the ground below. Pacing the length of it, I got to eight strides, though not without bumping into a Frenchman called Chris, who had a wide smile on his face and a glass of champagne in his hand. He lives in Dubai and works in private equity. He was initially unaware that he’d booked the first A380 flight, but would definitely try to book it again. His smile would have been wider if he’d made it into one of the 14 first-class suites, at the front section of the upper deck, where you’ll find more walnut veneer than in a Bentley showroom. Each large seat area is a capsule with a minibar and a pop-up vanity mirror with a tray of beauty products. Lady Penelope, taking the weight off her strings, would feel right at home. This is where you’ll find those “shower spas” — posh toilets, really, with a wide leather bench seat concealing a loo underneath, a full-length mirror, a hairdryer, and spa-style smellies. The shower itself is a small cubicle at one end — and, if you’ve shelled out the £3,000- plus it costs to fly from London to Dubai in first, you can book a 25-minute slot in here. For five minutes of that, you’re allowed the water on. Of course, there’s an environmental cost as well as a financial one in having showers on planes. The A380 has to heave an extra 1,100lb of water into the sky on takeoff. The airline says that new engines on the A380 mean the plane is 20% per seat more fuel-efficient than the latest 747s, and that, per passenger, the A380 emits about half the European Union’s target for new cars. Maybe so, but no showers would mean less fuel. And what of the 399 passengers who have to slum it on the lower deck? No shower. No bar. Diddums. But the first thing I notice down below is the lack of noise. Even at the rear of the plane, always the noisiest and bumpiest during turbulence, it is remarkably quiet and stable. The plane’s extreme weight and bulk help it to wallow through the worst knocks. In economy, the march of seat backs and heads looks familiar, but the cabin is 14in wider than a 747, which means a crucial extra inch of width per seat. You get an adequate, not revolutionary, 33in of legroom, but the base of the seats rolls forward slightly when you recline. This gives you another inch. In all classes, the lighting is co-ordinated to the time of day it is where you’re heading, with a purpley twilight, stars on the ceiling at night, even chirpy birdsong with the dawn. Even in economy, there are good seat-free areas for leg-stretching DVT paranoiacs, but most people were glued to the seatback TVs: 10.6in in economy (compared with 6.4in on BA), 17in in business and 23in in first). All are touch-screen. Each seat on the aircraft has a USB port and a new in-flight entertainment system: 1,100 on-demand channels, seat-to-seat phone, e-mail and texting (the latter two $1 per message sent) — and, coolest of all, live footage of the flight’s progress streamed from three exterior cameras. One records the view below, one points forward, and one is atop the tailplane, looking down on the rest of the craft — providing a surreal out-of-plane experience. That’s the view I was watching as we came in to land at Heathrow, and at 88ft above the ground, it made other taxiing aircraft appear rather small. I’m not looking forward to my next flight on a not-so-superjumbo |
.jpg)
