Many Singapore Air Show visitors are seeing the Airbus A380 paying for itself in commercial service for the first time as it lands and takes off here at Changi Airport. For at least another six months, Singapore will remain the only operating base for the world’s largest airliner and local carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) its only operator. While Dubai’s Emirates Airline is still the largest A380 customer, twice-a-day flights by SIA illustrate vividly how the global economic center of gravity has moved east to the Asia Pacific region.
For instance, so strong is demand for SIA connections with Australia that in April–just six months after the Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered A380 replaced one of three daily Boeing 747-400 flights to Sydney–the airline will add a Boeing 777-300ER. By June, SIA plans to host four flights every day on the route, providing accommodation for 10,500 passengers each week to and from Sydney, in addition to the capacity aboard its 66 weekly Australian flights to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
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