According to official data from Airbus, the A380 has a range of 9,444 miles (15,200 km) with its 84,500 US gal fuel capacity. Let’s see how far they’re actually flying this behemoth.

1. Qantas from Dallas-DFW to Sydney-SYD (flight number QF 8 / QFA8 – click here to track) is both the longest route operated by an Airbus A380 and also the longest non-stop scheduled commercial flight in the world. The trip covers 8,578 mi (13,805 km) in 16 hr 55 min and carries up to a whopping 484 passengers in 4 classes of service.

2. Emirates from Dubai-DXB to Los Angeles-LAX (flight number EK 215 / UAE215 – click here to track) begins the 4-in-a-row sweep of Emirates flights to/from the US. Covering 8,339 mi (13,420 km) in 16 hr 15 min, this route also earns the title of 4th longest non-stop flight in the world (Top 10: World’s longest non-stop flights).

3. Emirates from Dubai-DXB to Houston-IAH (flight number EK 211 / UAE211 – click here to track) covers 8,168 mi (13,145 km) in 16 hr 45 min. Previously flown on an Emirates Boeing 777-300ER, Airbus A380 service began in December 2014. In addition to being the 3rd longest A380 flight, it is also the 6th longest flight in the world.

4. Like #3 above, Emirates from Dubai-DXB to San Francisco-SFO (flight number EK 225 / UAE225 – click here to track) was also switched from a Boeing 777-330ER in December 2014 to one of Emirates’ beloved A380s. The 16 hr 00 min flight covers a distance of 8,103 mi (13,040 km).

5. Emirates from Dubai-DXB to Dallas-DFW (flight number EK 221 / UAE221 – click here to track) ends the 4-in-a-row Emirates sweep with a 4th US destination flight. Frequent travelers on this route got the upgrade from a Boeing 777-200LR to the A380 in October 2014. The course covers 8,040 mi (12,939 km) in 16 hr 15 min of scheduled flying time.

6. Qantas has been flying their A380 from Los Angeles-LAX to Melbourne-MEL for quite a while– since 2008. Flight number QF 94 / QFA94 – click here to track covers 7,921 mi (12,748 km) in 15 hr 50 min.

7. Etihad from Sydney-SYD to Abu Dhabi-AUH (flight number EY 455 / ETD455 – click here to track) covers 7,492 mi (12,057 km) in 14 hr 40 min. The service was started in June 2015, making it one of the most recent additions to the top 20 list.

8. Qantas from Los Angeles-LAX to Sydney-SYD (flight number QF 12 / QFA12 – click here to track) covers 7,488 mi (12,051 km) in 15 hr 00 min.

9. This route from Sydney-SYD to Dubai-DXB is a tie between Emirates and Qantas (flight number EK 413 / UAE413 – click here to track) covers 7,481 mi (12,039 km) in 14 hr 30 min. The Qantas route (flight number QF 1 / QFA1 – click here to track) is scheduled at 15 hr 05 min.

10. Emirates from Brisbane-BNE to Dubai-DXB (flight number EK 435 / UAE435 – click here to track) covers 7,442 mi (11,977 km) in 14 hr 35 min.

11. Etihad from Melbourne-MEL to Abu Dhabi-AUH (flight number EY 461 / ETD461 – click here to track) will cover 7,235 mi (11,644 km) in 14 hr 05 min when it takes its maiden flight on June 1, 2016.

12. Is a 3-way tie:

China Southern Airlines from Los Angeles-LAX to Guangzhou-CAN (flight number CZ 328 / CSN328 – click here to track) covering 7,231 mi (11,637 km) in 14 hr 50 min.

And also tied for 12th is: Melbourne-MEL to Dubai-DXB is another tie between Emirates (flight number EK 407 / UAE407 – click here to track) and Qantas (flight number QF 9 / QFA9 – click here to track). The route covers 7,231 mi (11,637 km) in 14 hr 05 min for Emirates and 14 hr 10 min for Qantas.

13. Korean Air flies the A380 on its Atlanta-ATL to Seoul-ICN route (flight number KE 36 / KAL36 – click here to track). Coming in at #13, the total journey takes 15 hr 10 min, covering 7,152 mi (11,510 km) of ground.

14. Korean Air from New York-JFK to Seoul-ICN has 2x scheduled flights per day (flight number KE 82 / KAL82 – click here to track and flight number KE 86 / KAL86 – click here to track) covers 6,906 mi (11,114 km) in 14 hr 20 min. Between the 2 flights on the monstrous A380, Korean Air offers a total of 814 seats per day between New York and Seoul.

Also covering the route is Asiana from New York-JFK to Seoul, South Korea – Incheon International-ICN (flight number OZ 221 / AAR86 – click here to track). It covers 6,906 mi (11,114 km) in 14 hr 30 min. The Asiana route seems a bit less desirable as they cram 495 seats on board each A380, 21% more than Korean Air.

15. Emirates from Dubai-DXB to Toronto-YYZ (flight number EK 241 / UAE241 – click here to track) covers 6,899 mi (11,103 km) in 14 hr 10 min.

16. Etihad from Abu Dhabi-AUH to New York, NY – Kennedy-JFK (flight number EY 103 / ETD103 – click here to track) covers 6,867 mi (11051 km) in 14 hr 05 min.

17. Emirates from Dubai-DXB to New York-JFK operates twice daily (flight number EK 201 / UAE201 – click here to track and flight number EK 203 / UAE203 – click here to track) and covers 6,849 mi (11,022 km) in 14 hr 20 min.

18. British Airways and Singapore Airlines are tied for the Singapore-SIN to London Heathrow-LHR, 6,765 mi (10,887 km) route. British Airways operates its A380 once daily (flight number BA 12 / BAW12 – click here to track) in 13 hr 50 min, while Singapore has 2x daily flights between the cities (flight number SQ 308 / SIA308 – click here to track and flight number SQ 322 / SIA322 – click here to track). The scheduled duration is 14 hr 10 mins.  The 3x flights per day make this route the most heavily saturated A380 route in the world, offering 1,287 seats daily between Singapore and London on the aircraft type.

19. Singapore from Singapore-SIN to Paris-CDG (flight number SQ 336 / SIA336 – click here to track) covers 6,666 mi (10,728 km) in 14 hr 00 min.

20. Malaysia Airlines operates 2x flights on their A380s between Kuala Lumpur-KUL to London Heathrow-LHR (flight number MH 4 / MAS4 – click here to track and MH 2 / MAS2 – click here to track). The route covers 6,593 mi (10,610 km) in 14 hr 05 min.

The post Top 20: Longest Airbus A380 Routes in the World first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

Unlike the Boeing 747, Airbus’ A380 upper deck covers the entire span of the plane’s body and thus gives it significantly more room–exactly 40% more square-footage than the B747, to be exact. This extra space allows the monstrous plane to hold up to  525 people in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in an all-economy class configuration.

The record-setting capacity, along with the fact that airports must be modified to even accept the jet, have added to the allure and media hype of the aircraft; I mean, it was even rumored that a Saudi Price was working on a purchasing an A380 to be used as his very own flying palace:

So, how many A380s are out there and who operates them?

Source of data for this spreadsheet: Planespotters.net

Here’s a quick breakdown, by carrier, of cities/routes that are operated by the A380:

Air Austral

Not yet delivered

Air France

Airbus Industrie

Not used on commercial routes

Asiana Airlines

British Airways

China Southern Airlines

Emirates

Etihad Airways

Federal Express (FedEx)

Not yet delivered and won’t be used on commercial passengers routes

Korean Air Lines

Lufthansa

Malaysia Airlines

Qantas

Qatar Airways

Singapore Airlines

Thai Airways International

Up next: The Top 15 Longest A380 flights in the world!

Feature image source: CC BY 2.5

The post Airbus A380: Current Routes and Operators first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

…it must be a sign

We made it to Dulles from our connecting flight with about 3 hrs to kill before takeoff. I had a few United Club passes that I wanted to use before they expired, but we wanted to stay in Terminal B. Unfortunately, you’re out of luck when it comes to United Clubs in Terminal B.

Image source: airchive.com

The next best bet is using Priority Pass to gain entry to the “BRITISH AIRWAYS GALLERIES LOUNGE,” located in Terminal B. This would have been perfect if it weren’t for this caveat, listed on the PriorityPass website:

Opening Hours: 07:00 – 14:00 daily. Cardholders will not be admitted to the Lounge outside these hours.

So, again, no club. Guess we’ll have to slum it with common folk. We posted up at one of the restaurants to kill the time:

From: McCown
To: Family/Friends

Hello from our first leg of the trip! We are having dinner/we’re not really sure which meal to get on our new time schedule. We board the plane in about an hour. Here’s the bad news: we booked our seats with a seat in between us hoping to get the whole row to ourselves. We’ve just found out that the plane is completely booked. Looks like I’m facing another 10+ hour plane trip stuck in the middle.

Here’s a pic of us eating dinner.

I think my next few emails will be more entertaining and (hopefully) more visually stimulating.

Turkish Airlines Flight 8 – IAD to IST – Airbus A340-300 -11:25pm to 4:40pm (+1 day)

With takeoff scheduled at 11:25pm, we moseyed back down to the gate around 10:30pm and boarding was already well underway! We had planned to be the first on the plane in an effort to trade around seats, if possible, but this flight was 100% full!

Example of a Turkish Air A340-300. Source: Wikipedia

The economy cabin is configured as “2 – 4 – 2”. Typically, we would just bite the bullet and take a window and an aisle so as to not have to have any additional passengers right next to us, but, when I booked the seats (just a few weeks prior to departure), the plane appeared to be wide open! So, I used the strategy of booking an aisle and middle seat on one of the sections with 4 seats across in the hopes that we could spread out across the empty seats. Well, no dice on this trip. When I checked the seat map on the day of departure, the cabin was showing 100% capacity! Guess that plan backfired on us.

Turkish Airlines A340-300. Economy cabin: 2 – 4 – 2 configuration

Despite being full, boarding was pretty smooth and painless and we made it back to our seats:

The Seat

The seat was fine. Nothing special, but no complaints either. The interior was nice and relatively new looking. Those bright blue seats are pretty unmistakable for Turkish Airways.

I was just pleased to have personal in-flight entertainment with a decent-sized screen:

The TV/Movies selection, however, left a bit to be desired:

Turkish Airlines New Releases section: “The Man With One Red Shoe” starring Tom Hanks…released in 1985. Let’s hope this isn’t a theme, Turkey

The Food

Immediately after reaching 10,000 feet, the flight attendants came through the cabin distributing menus for the meal services: Dinner then Breakfast:

Dinner and breakfast menu

Dinner consisted of:

• Smoked salmon with horseradish sauce
• “Shepherd salad” with white cheese
• Choice of
  • Grilled kofta with sautéed vegetables and rice
  • Grilled chicken breast with fried eggplants in tomato sauce and polenta
• Apricot cake

The meal service started around 12:10am ~ 45 minutes after takeoff and lasted until appx 1am. I went with the kofta option and found it to be pretty good:

Grilled kofta with sautéed vegetables and rice

Kofta is essentially a grilled lamb meatball of sorts. Turkish Air’s variety had a good flavor, was spiced well and all around delicious. The rice was pretty bland but that’s standard practice for plane food:  serve it bland and you can salt and season yourself. We washed it all down with a mini bottle of Ancyra, a nice red wine from Turkey. Overall, this was a pretty quality meal.

By around 1am EST, the meal service was over and we were able to get about 6.5 hours of (restless) sleep in the economy seats. By 7:15am EST / 2:15pm Istanbul time, the breakfast service was starting. On the menu this time:

• Fresh fruit salad
• Cheese tray: white cheese, cheddar cheese, black olive, tomato and cucumber
• Cheese omelette with grilled tomato and panfried potatoes

Breakfast service: Cheese omelette with potatoes

While ok for economy, the breakfast wasn’t nearly as good as dinner–guess it doesn’t help that it had been sitting in the warmer for the past 8+ hours.

Service

The service was fine. Not too rushed but our flight in Thai Airways economy from Phuket-HKT to Hong Kong-HKG was much better. The Thai Airways staff delivered much more detailed, personal service than Turkish Air. That being said, the Turkish Air service was leaps and bounds better than any US airline’s transatlantic service in economy. But, then again, it could have just been the fact that TK still serves free alcohol on international flights.

The amenity kits were distributed the same time as the menus, right after takeoff:

Decent enough amenity kit

Ear plugs and eye mask–my only hope at any sleep….

We landed at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport on time and were soon on our way through customs. A 90-day visa for Americans cost us $20, payable with USD at the airport. Immigration was a huge cluster and the Eastern European/Turkish line forming has begun with lots of push, shoving and cutting in line. But hey, if you can’t beat em’….

BOTTOM LINE: Turkish Airlines has a pretty good long-haul product. The food, seats and service were all above average and definitely worth flying again. I’d pick TK over Delta or United for transatlantic flights any day.

The post Turkish Air Flight TK 8 – Washington-IAD to Istanbul-IST first appeared on Weekend Blitz.