Now let’s see, where did I leave off after yesterday’s post? Ah yes, we were leaving coach behind and heading up to business class. (As a reminder, you can see all the pictures and videos here.)

At the top of the rear stairs, we entered the rear galley area and then saw the lav (bathroom). This thing is decked out with wood trim throughout and a nice big window. It’s too bad they couldn’t have the toilet face the other way so you could actually stare out into the blue while you do your business.

After the lav, you enter the super cool guy lounge. If this were on the ground, I’d probably be denied at the door since my name clearly wouldn’t be on the list. Ok, maybe it’s not that cool, but this is probably the best that’s been on a commercial jet since the 747 upper deck lounge days many years ago. There’s a fully stocked bar in the middle along with couches and a big screen lining the walls.

Keep moving and you walk into the business class cabin. This has a 1-2-1 configuration, and it seems like these seats take up a huge amount of space. It’s interesting how they’re set up. On the sides, one row’s seat will be right on the window while the one behind it will have the seat more on the inside. You’ll have to take a look at this video with my friend, Paul Tomasiello from Expedia, explaining the pros and cons of the cabin layout to get a better idea.

Ok, enough about business class. Let’s head to the big show . . . First Class and the suites. There’s no doubt these are really nice from the moment you walk in. How do they stack up to the Qantas and Singapore suites? Good question, and I’m not sure I can answer it. I didn’t have enough time to play with them all, and they’re all really nice so it’s tough to pick a winner without actually taking a flight in each. That probably won’t happen anytime soon, so let’s just leave it by saying that I’d gladly fly in any of them. I do have to give Emirates a pat on the back for the personal minibar. That’s completely excessive but kind of fun. No matter what, you’ll have plenty of privacy and a lot of luxury. Take a look at the video for a tour of the cabin.

The one thing that Emirates First Class passengers have that nobody else will is the onboard spa. There was a question about this when I talked about it last week, and I’ve confirmed that the water does stay stored in a tank after it’s used. It’s not expelled during flight, so they carry all that extra weight around. It’s clearly not an environmentally friendly option in any way, but it is definitely an impressive differentiator.

The two spas are located way up front on the upper deck on either side of the front stairway. These areas couldn’t be used for seating because of the stairs, so it’s a smart use of otherwise wasted space. The shower water didn’t turn on when we were there, but we were assured that you get full, “five-star hotel” quality water pressure. The attention to detail is unreal. They even have heated floors. Take a tour for yourself.

And that was about it. As you might have heard in the video, we were the last tour and we had to return to our seats for landing. I won’t bother embedding these last two videos, but you can see us turning toward the west with my home in Long Beach in the distance and then finally landing if you’re interested.

And that was it. After we got off the plane, I dropped Paul off at the airport for him to fly on a seemingly tiny 737 back to his home up north, and I headed on my way back to work. Emirates has really put together a great product here. If I get the chance to fly it one day, it will probably be in the back of the bus, but I wouldn’t mind. Even in the back, it’s a very nice experience.

Sorry it took me an extra day to put this together, but it was no easy feat. The A380 is one big plane, and I have plenty to talk about. Because of that, I’ve decided to split this post in half. Today, I’ll cover life on the lower deck, in the economy cabin. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to the fancy pants world of business and first class on the upper deck. I’m also doing things differently this time in that I’m focusing on videos instead of photos. If you want to see all the photos and videos, go here.

You might remember when I flew on the A380 demo flight out of LAX late last year. At the time, I talked about the airplane itself, but the interior didn’t matter because it was just the Airbus house interior. This time, it was outfitted with the full Emirates product, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on here . . . mostly.

But first, let me say this. My seat this time was right on top of the unbelievably massive wing, fairly close to the engines. The noise from those engines was significantly less than I remembered sitting behind the wing last time. It was virtually silent from where I sat, and that was impressive in itself considering its size. This plane feels like a tank, in a good way.

But getting on the plane would have to wait. It all started out slowly when our aircraft was delayed. As we waited for the plane to arrive outside the fantastic Flight Path Learning Center at LAX, we were all of a sudden taken aback by an American 757 landing against the traffic pattern (to the east). Needless to say, it was the emergency landing that the news covered thoroughly. That actually delayed the A380′s arrival by another 15 minutes since they had to briefly close the south runways.

Once the plane arrived, there was the usual press conference, handshaking, blah blah blah. You guys don’t care about that (and neither did I, really). Let’s get to the plane itself. I was seated in coach while my friend and still photographer (at least for this event) Paul Tomasiello from Expedia was seated in business class. (Not sure how he pulled that one off.) So they had everyone in coach board using the rear stairs and everyone in business board using the front stairs. Nobody was seated in first, as far as I know.

Once onboard, the first things that caught my eye were the gigantic seatback televisions. They are truly massive for a coach seat. Emirates has set this up so that the entire bottom deck is a sea of coach, so seeing all the screens flicker in unison was an interesting sight. I walked for a few miles before finally reaching my seat over the wing. (They need water stations every mile or two on that thing.) The aircraft is set up in a 3-4-3 configuration, and I had the middle seat on the left side. Shortly after sitting down, the guy in the window somehow self-upgraded himself and I never saw him again. So, we had a nice empty middle seat.

The economy seat itself proved to be comfortable. There is a good amount of legroom on board, to the point where my knees didn’t get very close to the seatback. I was surprised to see that the seatbacks were stuffed full of inflight magazines and catalogs, so clearly they haven’t gone paperless just yet. Once they do, there will be even more room.

The seats have a nice recline. It’s the style of recline that brings the front of your seat forward so you don’t disturb the person behind you as much. That can be a pain when there isn’t much legroom, but in this case it worked out well.

Let’s talk about connectivity. This thing is seriously connected. There’s a universal power outlet in each armrest and a USB port in the back of each seat. There’s also a place to hang a coat on your seat as well as a cupholder that spins loosely to keep your cup level regardless of the pitch of the airplane.

Then there’s that big pretty screen. You can do all kinds of great stuff with this system. There are something like 1,000 movies, tv shows, games, music, etc. They also have the ability to share screens – which I believe means that you and your seatmate can watch the same thing at the same time on your own screens.

There’s a great map (which may be the same one that Air New Zealand uses?) and it even shows you the registration number of your airplane. That gets the official seal of airline dork approval. There are also three different camera views. One is taken from the nose pointing forward, one is taken from the tail pointing forward, and another looks straight down. I saw this on a South African A340 once before, but that didn’t prevent me from being entertained by it for a long time.

After making myself comfortable, it was time to get airborne. Check out this massive wing. Believe it or not, that’s a wingtip in the distance.

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August 5, 2008
Emirates #7224 Lv Los Angeles (LAX) 1204p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 133p
LAX: Imperial Terminal, Runway 25L
Aircraft: A6-EDA, Airbus A380-800, ~250/489 passengers
Seat: 61B
Flight Time: 1h29m

Shortly after takeoff, the seatbelt sign came off, but I waited for the crowd rush to die down before taking my own tour of the plane. While we waited, they brought by some very tasty appetizers (mmmm, foie gras) followed by ample, flowing Dom Perignon.

I waited for Paul to come downstairs to visit us peons before we heading backwards on the guided tour. We stopped by the crew rest facility taking up the middle of the last few rows of the plane, passed the row with oxygen masks hanging down, and finally reached row 88, the last row in coach. After that, we took a trip up the winding rear staircase (felt like a cruise ship back there), and finally made it up to the rarefied air of the upper deck.

As I mentioned, this post is getting long, so come back tomorrow and I’ll have all the details on the upper deck. If you can’t wait, you can see all my pictures from the trip here.

I have more from NBTA on BNET this week including discussions with both ANA and Lufthansa.

Frontier Receives DIP Financing from Perseus
I never thought we’d see it happen, but I’ve now been proven wrong. Frontier picked up $75 million to help them restructure and exit bankruptcy.

Continental’s Flat Seat Business Decision
It’s a large investment, so it has to be done right. Continental took a lot into account when deciding how to go flat in BusinessFirst.

Delta and Air Canada CEOs Talk to the Crowd at NBTA
NBTA had its big airline CEO roundtable yesterday, and Air Canada’s Montie Brewer combined with Delta’s Richard Anderson to talk shop and answer questions.

Emirates and the A380
Emirates picked up its first A380 this week, and with 57 more in the pipeline, the airline has big plans for the future.

Chatting with Star Alliance Members ANA and Lufthansa
I had the chance to sit with both ANA and Lufthansa at NBTA this week. What do they have in store for the US market?

It’s Friday, so let’s just forget about reality and move into the world of the super rich and famous. The hot trend these days? Private suites doubling as First Class. Emirates, Qantas, and Singapore are all entering the ring as are others, and it’s just ridiculously awesome, to say the least.

Now I didn’t get the chance to see Emirates’ stuff because I ran out of time. Since I’ll be on their A380 demo flight next week, I figured I could put them last. I did, however, get to see Qantas and Singapore show off their stuff. Which one wins? Well, they both do. Singapore has fantastic privacy while Qantas has some pretty cool uses of space. I’d be happy to take either one on my next trip.

Let’s start with Qantas, since that’s the one I saw first. These suites will be going into the A380 aircraft that begin flying for the airline soon. When you enter the suite, you can see that it appears to be open on the far side. This will usually be the side of the aircraft, but if you’re in the one in the middle, it may still be open to the aisle. I didn’t get clarification on that.

From the picture at left, you can see the floorspace to the left of the center of the seat. That’s where your TV is, and it’s where your tray table rolls out as well as your bed. The seat turns left and goes flat that way to avoid taking up so much room on the plane.

At right, you see the friendly flight attendant presenter sitting at what would be the foot end of your bed. When you’re not laying down, that becomes a seat and the tray table rolls out in between you so you can share a meal. It’s quite nice. That metal thing at the right of the picture? That’s your TV screen folded up.

The coolest part of this? The remote control. Check out this bad boy at left. It’s actually pretty heavy, but it’s impressive what it can do. Watch videos, listen to music, turn on your massager, dim your lighting, and electronically shade your windows if you’d like. It’s so cool. Hopefully it doesn’t break with so much complexity.

Now let’s talk about Singapore. They’ve gone for a different style of suite. The view at right is from the door. You look right and you see the very plush seat. If you looked left, you’d see the TV. Straight ahead of you is where the tray table rolls out. There is no angle here at all.

The bed is completely separate from the seat here. In fact, it took a couple minutes to set up and it’s a fairly complex procedure. Since this is Singapore, the flight attendants do it for you, and will of course be at your beck and call. The bed itself lies in the wall behind the seat. The seat folds down and the bed unfolds over it. You can see this (sort of) at left. You can also see that the attention to detail is phenomenal. They’ve even put a place for you to hang your headphones when you’re in bed. All of the suites here (and on Qantas, for that matter) have multiple locations for entertainment controls so that regardless of your position, the controls are always within reach.

This last shot (at right) shows me sitting down with spokesperson James Boyd. He is where my feet would lie in flat bed position. And you can see the screen behind his head. The table was very big and seemingly sturdy. It was a very comfortable place to be.

Though the walls of the suite don’t go all the way up, you have plenty of privacy here. There are shades over two open air holes looking to the aisle, and when you pull them down, only the bottom is see-through. This is, of course, for flight attendants to perform their duties.

As you can see, these are incredible and ridiculous all at the same time. It’s amazing to think how quickly First Class has gone upmarket. As long as there is enough demand for these seats, we can expect to continue to see more and more innovation in this area. Though I may not have the chance to fly it, it’s still fun to drool over.

I saw this post from Gulliver noting that Emirates has decided to remove all paper from the seatback pockets of its A380 to save weight, and I couldn’t stop laughing. It seems to me that if the airline was really that concerned about fuel burn, it could probably do without the onboard showers for First Class passengers.

The plane has 489 seats, and this moves apparently saves 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) per seat. So that means they’ll save about 2,100 pounds per plane. In case you were wondering, the plane weighs just over 1.2 million pounds at its max takeoff weight, so this isn’t much. But that being said, it will save something, and every little bit counts.

Now, I understand that they’re planning on offering all that paper content on the video screen instead, so it does make sense, but I still can’t get past the whole shower thing. In case you missed it, Emirates will be offering showers for First Class passengers. It is said that the airline will have to bring 1 tonne of water for this purpose, and guess what? One tonne is 2,200 pounds. That’s effectively the weight of all those paper products that are being removed.

So, if you’ve crammed yourself into coach and your seatback video doesn’t work, you can take comfort in the fact that at least First Class passengers can shower onboard. Or not.