Every now and again, I get to do something really cool and when I flew the Air France Airbus A380 from London-Heathrow to Paris, France. This is no ordinary flight, afterall, it is the shortest flight of an Airbus A380!
I first flew from Houston, TX to London-Heathrow arriving on Saturday, June 26, 2010. I was accompanied with my travelling buddy from work. We are kindred spirits and love to do aviation-related stuff. We landed in Terminal 4 and Air France, being a SkyTeam member is also in Terminal 4.
We were both shocked as the check-in area was bare although it was about 10:00a and our departure time was 12:50p. The agent advised that the majority of the passengers had already showed up or had checked in online. Wow, they are indeed excited about it all. I was disappointed as I wanted to see the check-in area. I had done my Masters Thesis on this airplane so every time I fly it I am always curious at the extra amount of passengers it deposits on the airports.
We got a standby boarding pass as the agent said the flight was overbooked in Economy by about 11 passengers. Our previous checks had indicated that there were 10 standbys in all. So that is quite a bit of people we needed not to show up so we can get a seat. Let’s hope we are in luck.
We cleared security without issues and then headed for the SkyTeam Lounge. We figured we would not get in as we have a Continental Presidents Club card, but were not departing on Continental. We tried anyways, but were denied access. No worries, we then proceeded to watch planes. This is always fun at Heathrow!
The airplanes were taking off away from Terminal 5 and towards us so that was perfect. We wondered if we would see the A380 land since there were two runways and the one closest to us was being used for takeoffs. A quick check of google.com showed that the flight was due at 11:14a which was in about 40 minutes or so. The Emirates A380 from Dubai was due at 11:48a or so. Across the runway in the middle of the airport at Terminal 1 was Singapore’s and Qantas; I love Heathrow!
