Emirates A380 SYD-AKL-SYD Inaugural Trip Report

[Sam Chui]

Background


I was invited by Emirates to join their inaugural A380 flight from Sydney to Auckland and back on the same day. I am particularly keen on photographing their splendid and luxurious cabin and compare with Singapore and Qantas A380 which I have flown and toured previously.

Emirates have invited about 20-30 airport officials, business and media on the day to sample the A380 across the Tasman in First and Business class, product demo on the A380, a local New Zealand wine yard visit and return Limo transfer to and from home.


02 Feb 2009


I started the day by having a quick hot shower at 05:30 and the limo (a Holden Caprice. The last time I travelled with Emirates I scored a nice BMW 745 series) is waiting by 05:50 and arrived Sydney airport at 06:30 for the 08:30 departure flight on EK412. (Inbound from Dubai and continue to Auckland)

Emirates use the Western end of Int’l Terminal (T1) at Sydney Int’l. There were 2 separate areas for check in, one for First and Business and another whole row for Economy. Check in was a breeze and I received boarding pass, lounge invitation and Fast Track Immigration. Emirates have invited Sydney Symphony for music entertainment at the check in lounge.








The Emirates Lounge in Sydney is situated on the lower ground floor near Gate 59. It is the best lounge in Sydney Airport in my opinion. When I step in the lounge, I received the official invitation envelope and card for the day’s A380 demo event. At the same time, A6-EDD just taxied past the window after arrival and certainly attracted all eyes in the lounge.



Emirates have set up a small stage to celebrate the A380 flight to Sydney, hosted by the VP of Australia, Stephen Pearse and Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations, East Asia & Australasia. The NSW Minister for Tourism also attended the event.



Above Photo: Emirates VP of Australia, Stephen Pearse made welcome speech to the guest and media.




Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations, East Asia & Australasia presents an Emirates A380 model to the Tourism Minister of NSW.

After the ceremony, I have a quick bite in the dining area and there are many cocktails, champagne and canapés flowing around for guests and passengers.







I also have the pleasure to meet Isabelle Chu in the lounge, a very famous A380 inaugural flyers in the lounge. Isabelle is a director/partner of a Corporate Travel Agent in Perth, Australia and an enthusiast in grand scale, she had flown the inaugural SQ A345 to LA/NY, SQ A380 to Sydney and London (and Paris soon). She had also flown the inaugural Qantas A380 from MEL to LAX and Emirates A380 from DXB to JFK.

[Sam Chui]

Flight EK412 started boarding around 0815 at Gate 61, there are 3 airbridges with one goes straight to the upper deck door.



A6-EDD waits for the maiden voyage to Auckland, New Zealand!!



Emirates handed out chocolates for all passengers onboard the inaugural flight today.



Welcome Aboard Emirates A380



My seat, 11A, the 3rd window seat in Business Class. Although I was one of the last passengers to board the aircraft, the very busy crews still manage to deliver Champagne and amenity kit featuring Bulgari hand cream and cologne.








We pushed back slightly late and lined up on runway 34L around 0910 local time.



The tail camera view of A6-EDD lining up on Rwy 34L.

The Departure

It was a powerful, yet quiet and effortless takeoff; we rotated around ½ way down the 13000 feet runway and initially heading North direction. The cruise level is 41,000 feet. Flight time is a short 2 hrs 40 minutes. The pilot, Wayne Taylor is from New Zealand (how nice for him to fly the giant A380 back home!!) and First officer Grant Fichera is from Australia.



Above picture: Climbing out of Rwy34L with some condensation over the engine. The smaller window of A380 (and most Airbuses) makes it difficult to photograph.



The in flight service starts promptly after we reached our initial cruise level. The crew set up our table individually and serves course by course instead of a “one tray” approach.



I have a glass of Moet and Chandon for the start. The crew will serve Brunch on the short flight to Auckland with 2 course meals. Unfortunately they ran out of menu of this flight.

[Sam Chui]

Fruit Plate, croissant and banana bread to start with the Brunch



The main course of today’s brunch is Rivioli with Mushroom, the serving was quite small but the taste exceeded most Italian Restaurants. The other choice being Scramble Eggs with Smoke Salmon.

After the meal service, I head down to the bar, which located at the very end of the upper deck. There were lot of people and the bartender is happy to serve any drinks you name it.



There are a lot of room around the bar and one can sit down on the four seater on each side and there is a large LCD TV with in-flight map and news showing. Personally, I think this is an excellent feature, it offers ample room for people who want to socialize and moves around during a long haul flight. I have experienced the upper class bar of Virgin Atlantic on a few occasions but given the incredible space of the A380, Emirates has the nicest bar in the sky!



View of 41,000 feet above the Tasman Sea from the bar.



After the bar, I returned to the seat and listened to some relaxing music while browse the latest ICE offering. I found the airshow excellent in graphics and very informative. It displays the Rego of the plane (one will never look out the window now!), all the standard cruising info and an interactive map of the plane’s position. (360 degrees)





The Seat (Business)



I founded the window seat on A380 very private. Every seat in Business class have its own aisle access without tripping over any neighbours. Window seat A and K offer the best privacy. The aisle seat can feel more cramp due to the near proximity to the aisle. The 2 seater in the middle (D and E) are also great for pairs tavelling.

The seat also come with massage function (waves, pulse, regular , zig zag...) with different area and intensity. When in fully flat position, my feet does not touch the wall. It fits a 1.95 m tall person with no problem in fully flat mode!


After 2 hrs 30 minutes from Sydney, we start to descend into Auckland Int’l.




A view of New Zealand shores.




Short approach on Rwy 23L on a glorious day in Auckland. A huge amount of crowd turned up in the viewing area (not visible in the photo)



EK412 finally touch down around 13:47 local time in Auckland. The plane touched down gently although I feel it “fishtailed” during landing a bit. We rolled all the way till the end of Rwy23L and head to Gate 15. We received a very warm welcome by the Auckland airport Fire Brigade, a great water cannon salute resulted the glass being washed and wet.

[Sam Chui]

One last look of A6-EDD who carried me to New Zealand.





With a firm touchdown in Auckland, the first part of the journey comes to an end, but there's still the welcome ceremony to attend. All invited guests were escorted out of the plane and head back to the security screening to go upstairs for the ceremony.


The Ceremony








Emirates sure knows how to celebrate in style, over 100 guests were invited for the ceremony and touring of the aircraft.





Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations, East Asia & Australasia with the tourism minister of New Zealand and Auckland airport executive.

All invited guest on the day received a well presented gift bag, inside the gift bag includes a Herpa 1:500 EK A380 model, an Emirates A380 book by Andrew Spaeth and other goodies.

After the ceremony, media were given chances to tour the cabin (all clean and well presented) of the A380. I have included a few pictures in this Trip Report. You can view more by visit my personal website.


http://samchuiphotos.com/EKA380/

During the tour, the Emirates cabin crew were especially helpful, offered me every assistance for posing, providing equipment to gain elevation for photo purpose and happy to introduce all functionality of the aircraft.

All 3 class cabins were meticulously presented with food, turned down beds and other amenities. I remember there were no presentation whatsoever on the first Qantas A380 media tour of cabin apart from the clean seat. Qantas can certainly learn a few things from Emirates.

After the tour, it is time to say Goodbye to the friendly crew and head to the Emirates Lounge for some well deserved rest.






A6-EDD quietly parked at Gate 15 in the new extension of Auckland Int’l terminal.



A company A340-500 arrived from Melbourne at another gate.

[Sam Chui]

Entrance of the Emirates Lounge in Auckland









Moroccan Lamb Curry in the middle. (Excellent lamb from New Zealand)
What a wonderful spread of buffet, grand style!



With most invited guests headed out to the wine yard, a handful of us chose to be in the lounge to relax and enjoy the food and drinks offering.


There were an announcement about the delay of EK413 to Sydney (A380 return flight) by 45 minutes from 1845 to 1930. Although the announcement said it was due to the delay of inbound aircraft, I beg to differ as I was onboard the inbound flight without much delay. My guess is the VVIPs didn’t make back in time from the nearby Wine Yards. Later on, they started to appear in the lounge one by one around 1830.


The Journey Home




A6-EDD at Gate 15 ready for the return journey.



Scenes at boarding gate, with staff ready to hand out chocolate.



On the return flight, I am extremely fortunate to have another window seat on the right hand side (K) (I was given 14A in Sydney for the return flight, but the nice lady in EK lounge went out of her way to swap my seat with another passenger resulted my seat being 9K, just brilliant customer service! She also offered me an upgrade to First Class by using my Skyward Miles but I declined as I don’t want to leave out other members in the group complaint or jealous )

The loads on the return flight are
F 14/14
J 76/76
Y 290/399
Total 380 pax

I observed that most passenger showed very good interest on the inaugural A380 flight from Auckland with quite a few wearing unique EK A380 T shirt and baseball caps!

[Sam Chui]

A quick visit to flight deck (invited by the Captain) before takeoff. The load master is busy calculating the load sheet (in the middle jumpseat). A NZ journalist is busy interviewing the captain on his feeling of bringing the A380 to New Zealand on this historic day.



We climbed out of AKL around 1950 local time, (took more than ¾ of the runway to finally rotate, perhaps on idle power setting for takeoff?)



Window view from 9K, as we catch the sunset by flying westward to Sydney.


So far it has been a super day for me with every wish granted. However, I developed a very soar back during the inbound flight and the situation got worst on the return flight. I was carrying a heavy camera bag and the goodie bag was packed with heavy books and leaflets. I have to try to lie flat for some rest on most of the return flight. However, I still determined to stay up for dinner.




Appetizer: Seared Tuna and Nicoise Salad



Main: Grill Prawn Salad (other main course are Rosemary Chicken Breast Fillet, Cold Deli Platter and Pasta Ravioli)



Dessert: Lime Cake



Gorgeous sunset outside the window during dining time.

After the meal service, I turned on the noise reduction headphone and listen to some relaxing music. The flight cruise at 40,000 feet and total journey time was around 2 hr 50 minutes.




We touched down on Rwy 34L of Sydney around 2055 local time (50 mins delay). During the approach, with some sudden wind gust, the A380 wing tumbles and dropped (up and down) a bit. We touched down with some cross wind.



The tail camera shows A6-EDD parked at Gate 57 waiting the continuation journey to Dubai later that night.



The cockpit of A6-EDD at Sydney.


Trip Reflection


Although I’ve lost some interest in travel and posting trip reports over the last 12 months, the flight on the inaugural Emirates A380 SYD-AKL-SYD left extremely positive and proud memory. I enjoyed the overall experience and highly recommend to anyone who shares the same passion. Emirates have grown and became very sophiscated from my first flight with them many years ago. The customer services from reservation to ground staff to flight attendants are simply superb. To me, good customer service means to deliver beyond what a customer expects and never say “No” to your passengers request. Emirates should be very proud of their talented and well presented multi-lingual staff. Co-incidentally my best flight of 2005 and 2006 was also on Emirates. I know A380 on EK412/413 will be very well received and very popular with the travelers. Congratulations to Emirates on putting out such world class products!


Hope you enjoyed my trip report and looking forward to any feedback and comments.

Sam Chui
Sydney, Feb 2009


My other trip report:


A380 Inaugural SYD-SIN Singapore Airlines Suites

To Russia 2007! (IL9,Tu3,ILW,T20 + SQ/TG F)

Airbus A380 Demo Flight Trip Report HKG-HKG

Pakistan Int'l B747-240BM Trip Report (Pics/Video)

Biman Bangladesh BKK-DAC-JED-FCO A310/DC10

Kras Air IL86 Moscow-Krasnoyarsk

Austrian B777-200 SYD-KUL In New J Class

Emirates A345 + 77W SYD-CHC, AKL-SYD (best Flight)

Etihad: Bangkok - Abu Dhabi - Beirut + Sights

[Robert Zweck]

Sam,

As always, a First Class report

[Cliff Cook]

Hi Sam,

Your trip report is fantastic with awesome photographs. I want to say thank you so much for your sharing.

Regards,

Cliff Cook

[Sarah C]

Very impressive as always Sam

I did like the flightpath screen with all the flght information, particularly the rego of the aircraft

[Rhys Xanthis]

Thanks for the TR, looked amazing.