Singapore Airlines announced Friday it will soon fly the world’s largest jetliner, the A380, according to Engadget.
The airline says it will make the 80,000-pound plane three-quarters of the way across the Atlantic with a scheduled flight that travels about 60 minutes longer than normal. The extra time will allow the jet to park in New York for a day in order to refuel, bring back its Rolls-Royce engines and complete checks.
“This is an exciting milestone for the Airbus A380 and Singapore Airlines,” Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Airbus CEO, said in a statement. “This flight from Singapore to New York will serve as the guinea pig for our ground-breaking experimental flight to New Zealand.”
The flight will depart Singapore on Oct. 20, 2019, with a stop in Los Angeles. It will return to Singapore on Oct. 21, two days after landing in New York. The routes are initially scheduled for two weeks, but the airline will decide later whether to add more flights.
The A380 will remain in operation for Singapore Airlines until 2023, and its longer-than-normal flight will help to generate more “excitement about the aircraft,” the airline said.
Airbus is also planning to send the A380 down to New Zealand on Sept. 7. The airline said the flight would be the first of its kind to test the plane’s efficiency during winter in New Zealand.
