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Singapore Airlines (SIA) officially launched a global charity
auction Monday for seats on the maiden flights of the world's largest
passenger plane, the new Airbus A380, providing everyone with a chance
of participating in the historic flights on Oct. 25-26.
Seats in all three classes on the SQ380 Singapore-Sydney and
Sydney-Singapore flights will be sold progressively across both legs of
the flight in a two-week bidding period on the global online
marketplace, eBay, via the official Singapore Airlines website:
singaporeair.com/a380.
Keen travelers the world over can place a minimum bid at US$3.80 for an
economy class seat, $38 for a business-class seat and $390 for the new
"Singapore Airlines Suites" -- a newly introduced class that is
advertised as offering even more than first-class standards of comfort,
luxury and privacy. Bids may be made for single seats, doubles or
blocks of ten.
"SIA recognizes the global interest in partaking in the aviation
history-making flight and auctioning seems to be the fairest way to
decide who gets the seats," Singapore Airlines Indonesia public
relations manager Glory Henriette told a media conference here Monday.
"Further, by giving all sales proceeds to charity, we know all the
money raised is going to a good cause."
Glory said that the auction proceeds would be evenly divided between
the Community Chest of Singapore, the Sydney Children's Hospital at
Randwick and the Children's Hospital at Westmead, and international
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.
In addition to bidding for seats, Glory said, interested passengers
could also purchase limited "Buy-it-Now" seats in each class on the
auction page of the same website.
SIA will be the world's first airline to fly the super double-decker
jet after a costly two-year delay. It will receive the first of a total
of 19 purchased aircraft on Oct. 15 at an Airbus handover ceremony in
Toulouse, France.
The 555-seat aircraft, which will be configured with 471 seats to
provide more space for business and SIA Suites passengers, will be
flown to Singapore Changi Airport, the world's first A380 home airport,
before embarking on its first commercial flight to Sydney's Kingsford
Smith Airport.
Besides the Singapore-Sydney route, the SIA A380s will also serve the
Singapore-London route following the arrival of the next batch.
According to Glory, A380s had been allocated to the Sydney and London
routes due to heavy traffic and quota constraints.
"We have to make do with the allocated service slots at the two
airports, and the new A380 service will facilitate that," she said.
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