SINGAPORE – Singapore Airlines will temporarily redeploy an Airbus A380 superjumbo to Beijing to meet demand ahead of the Olympics.
The airline said it would deploy an A380 currently on the Singapore-London return service to the Chinese capital from July 31 to August 9.
It said that would be “to cater for increased demand in the lead-up to the start of the Olympic Gamesâ€.
SIA is likely to gain a lot of favourable publicity by showing off the A380 in Beijing during the Olympics.
SIA has flown one superjumbo to London since March 18 and said it would add an additional A380 flight on that route from July 16 after it takes delivery of its fifth aircraft in late June.
SIA became the first airline in the world to commercially operate the A380 when it launched flights to Sydney in October last year.
On Tuesday the A380 flew to its first Asian destination, Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Louis Gallois, chief executive of European aerospace giant EADS, said Monday that the latest delays to its flagship A380 superjumbo project would be three to five months.
Gallois stressed that “ramping up (A380) production was underway and so we are not faced with the same catastrophe we faced two years ago but (the ramping-up) is not going fast enough”.
