It was a plane meant to seat 520-odd passengers. But the MSN007, which had so far clocked up just 31 hours, was hosting a party of sorts in the air for just around 215 passengers — media fraternity comprising the chunk of it.
That was Airbus demonstrating A380’s performance to the media for the first time ever — in Toulouse (the home of Airbus) in the south of France, in February 2007, following a row of delays in its delivery programme of the superjumbo.
So we had the world’s largest passenger aircraft — the twin-deck A380 — all to ourselves, two years after the superjumbo made its maiden flight on April 27, 2005 … and it was stunningly quiet for its size.
At roughly 40 per cent load factor the take off was unbelievably smooth and fairly stable for this enormous piece of work flying on four powerful Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. And the MSN007 was one of the five A380 flight test aircraft built for the A380 campaign.
Once on board, it was almost like we owned the giant bird. The media had open access to the entire aircraft — all the way from the cockpit and the lower deck to the upper deck connected via the spiral staircase at the rear of the plane.
And while we were circling over Toulouse, reassuring the media was John Leahy, the then Co-Chief Commercial Officer of Airbus (now the Chief Operating Officer — Customers) of the superjumbo’s first delivery being on track.
Our mid-air party lasted nearly 120 minutes then, before the MSN007 effortlessly touched down back at the Toulouse Blagnac Airport. I have flown the superjumbo a few times since then, and till date it feels like I own the giant bird every time I am aboard an A380.
