(SINGAPORE - BT) An Australian has snapped up his personal slice
of aviation history by paying more than US$100,000 for a pair of
tickets on Singapore Airline's inaugural Airbus 380 flight from
Singapore to Sydney on Oct 25.
Julian Hayward picked up the two First Class Suite tickets for
US$100,380. That is exactly US$100,000 more than the US$380 figure
used as the baseline to set the bids rolling for First Class
tickets.
'It's been so long since we've had an aeronautical feat of
engineering - the 747 or even Concorde,' said Mr Hayward. 'I'm
extremely excited to have the opportunity to be the first ever
passenger on such a large feat of engineering and (it's) even
better that charities are benefiting from the maiden flight.'
SIA has put up a bulk of the 471 seats on the inaugural flight of
the world's largest passenger plane for auction on eBay, with the
proceeds going to charity.
The move has caught the fancy of aviation enthusiasts. Some
individual bidders have bid as high as US$20,800 for a single First
Class Suite ticket, US$8,303 for a Business Class seat and US$5,000
for a one-way seat in Economy Class. These are huge premiums
compared to the normal cost of $1,200 for an Economy Class seat,
$5,000 for Business Class and $7,200 for First Class.
And these are for new generation, specially-designed seats they
have never even seen yet!
Meanwhile, SIA yesterday opened up bidding for the Sydney-Singapore
return leg, which kicked off at 10 pm, Sydney time (8 pm Singapore
time) last night.
Bidding will continue until Sept 10.
Stephen Forshaw, SIA's chief spokesman, said he did not expect the
bidding for the Sydney-Singapore seats to match the highs of the
outbound leg.
'There is a novelty value in being on the first ever A380 flight in
the sky, which is reflected in the high bid prices,' he said. 'The
bid prices for the return leg should settle down a bit, we
think.'
The return leg of the charity flight will depart Sydney Kingsford
Smith Airport on Oct 26 at 4 pm (Sydney time) and arrive in
Singapore at 10 pm (Singapore time).
Meanwhile, bidding for the few remaining seats on the
Singapore-Sydney leg will end this Friday.
SIA, the first airline to fly the A380 super-jumbo, is putting up
about three-quarters of the 471 seats in each leg of the flight -
roughly 350 seats in all - across all three classes for bids. With
seats auctioned on both legs of the flight, about 700 seats in all
will be released for sale.
The airline has placed an order for 19 of these planes, and will
take delivery of the first aircraft on Oct 15.
All proceeds of the auction will be donated to charities, with
one-third of the funds going to Singapore's Community Chest;
one-third split between Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick and
The Children's Hospital at Westmead respectively; and one-third to
Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without
Borders.
