Emirates To Fly A380 To Auckland, Singapore Airlines Adds More A380 Service To London & More

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A look at some of the news stories that I noticed over the past week that didn’t merit a blog post of their own but that may be of interest or of use nonetheless. Stories include Lufthansa getting closer to offering wifi on short and medium-haul flights, Singapore Airlines adding capacity to its London route, and Emirates adding an A380 to its Auckland route.

Lufthansa To Offer WiFi On Short & Medium Haul Routes

Lufthansa has mentioned that it intends to offer wifi on its flights before but we’ve never had an actual implementation date from them…until now.

The airline has confirmed that it expects the first set of its aircraft to be equipped with the new Ka-band technology by October this year with the whole of its Airbus A320 fleet scheduled to be offering wifi by “mid-2018”.

Lufthansa A320Lufthansa A320 – Image courtesy of Mark Harkin via Flickr

The Ka-band technology isn’t what we’re currently used to on wifi-enabled aircraft….it’s faster and better. It’s broadband in the sky. BTA explained it well:

The Ka-band wifi is a result of a partnership with Inmarsat and offers coverage through Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network. Passengers will be able to access the internet using their own mobile devices via Wi-Fi. In addition to basic surfing and email, video streaming will be possible. At a later date passengers will be able to use their cellphones for SMS and data transfer via their own mobile accounts.

Emirates Adds A380 To Dubai – Auckland Route

While Qatar Airlines continues to fumble around trying to cobble together enough aircraft to get its Doha – Auckland route up and running Emirates continues to steal the show.

Emirates started its route to New Zealand’s North Island in March this year and has now announced that it will be replacing the Boeing 777-200LR that currently operates the route (and which is the aircraft Qatar Airways plans to use on its Auckland route) with one of its Airbus A380 whale jets.

From 30 October 2016 (a whole 3 months before Qatar Airways even plans to start its route) Emirates will use an A380 for all of its flights to/from Auckland….and that’s fantastic news for premium cabin passengers.

Emirates Business Class outside of the A380 isn’t anything to get excited about (regardless of what the hype and spin may tell you) but the Business Class cabin on the A380 is one of the better Business Class cabins in the air.

Gone will be the angle-flat seats in a 2-3-2 layout on the 777 to be replaced with the all-aisle access lie-flat seats of the A380:

emirates-a380-business-class-luke-lai-2Emirates A380 Business Class seat

As someone who’s booked to fly Qatar Airways Business Class from Auckland to Doha in February I’m really hoping Qatar Airways are watching. This route was supposed to be their big win over their neighbor airline but, although they will have the world’s longest commercial route should Doha-Auckland ever actually materialise, their 777-200LR cannot compete with Emirates’ A380 in any way whatsoever.

Unfortunately Qatar Airways doesn’t have the 80+ A380 aircraft that Emirates has so it’s unlikely that we’ll see them throw a whale jet at this route anytime soon…..but perhaps they’ll speed up the introduction of the “super-business class” we’ve been hearing about?

Singapore Airlines To Fly A Third A380 To Heathrow

In case anyone was wondering what Singapore Airlines planned to do with the A380 it recently announced it was removing from the Singapore-Tokyo-LA route, we now have the answer.

From 24 October 2016 Singapore Airlines will add a 3rd Airbus A380 aircraft to its Singapore – Heathrow route leaving just one of its 4 daily Heathrow flights with a Boeing 777 aircraft.

This is what the schedule will look like:

SQ306 SIN 01:15 – 07:25 LHR (Daily A380 service)
SQ308 SIN 09:10 – 15:20 LHR (Daily A380 service)
SQ318 SIN 12:50 – 19:00 LHR (Daily 777-300ER service)
SQ322 SIN 23:45 – 05:55+1 day LHR (Daily A380 service)

SQ305 LHR 09:15 – 06:10+1 day SIN (Daily A380 service)
SQ317 LHR 10:55 – 07:50+1 day SIN (Daily A380 service)
SQ319 LHR 20:35 – 17:30+1 day SIN (Daily 777-300ER service)
SQ321 LHR 22:05 – 19:00+1 day SIN (Daily A380 service)

Singapore Airlines A380Singapore Airlines Business Class A380

I’ve already made the most of the increased capacity by grabbing 3 business class seats for early next year and, as things stand, there’s plenty more availability out there for anyone who looks.

Not only is the addition of another A380 a big increase in capacity for Singapore Airlines but it also means more Singapore Airlines “suites class” First Class seats on the Singapore-London-Singapore route. These are one of the more aspirational and highly sought after award seats around and, last time I checked, there were still quite a few up for grabs…even during peak times.

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