It’s been a busy week for the Airbus superjumbo, with the launch of Emirates A380 services to Manchester, Air France to Tokyo, and Lufthansa to Beijing.
All three A380 routes commenced yesterday (September 1), with Emirates becoming the first carrier to fly the superjumbo to Manchester, and the first airline to operate a scheduled service with the A380 to any regional airport. For more details and images, click here.
From October 1 Emirates will add Hong Kong to the list of routes served by its A380, followed by the return of the superjumbo to the New York route on October 31.
Meanwhile Air France has launched A380 flights between Paris and Tokyo. The carrier will operate superjumbo services on flight AF276 every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from Paris CDG which arrives into Tokyo the next morning at 0810. Return A380 flight AF275 will depart Narita at 1150 every Monday, Thursday and Saturday to land back into CDG the same day at 1715. From October 5, Air France says the A380 service will be upgraded to a daily frequency.
Finally Lufthansa (which itself already serves Tokyo from Frankfurt with the A380), launched once-weekly superjumbo flights between Frankfurt and the Chinese capital Beijing. Flight LH720 departed Frankfurt at 1720, arriving in Beijing at 0830 the next day, with the return leg LH721 leaving China on Thursday at 1030, landing back in Germany at 1430. Lufthansa says it “aims to gradually increase the frequency of this service”.
The german carrier will also launch twice-weekly A380 flights to Johannesburg on September 12.
For more information visit emirates.com, airfrance.co.uk, lufthansa.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
