The A380 comes to Washington Dulles IAD

The Washington DC Lufthansa Sales and Station Colleagues welcomed the A380 as it carried over 500 Lufthansa employees and guests from Frankfurt to Washington. It touched down Sunday evening. After making sure we got all of the inbound passengers and VIPs to their hotels, we started decorating the Dulles Jet Center with Lufthansa and Airbus signage - it was our welcome center for our local guests who would be shuttled out to the aircraft for tours, and the highlight, a 1.5 hour fly around down the Potomac at only 10K feet about D.C. We received our first guests at 0600 and went lept bringing people out to see and tour the aircraft until 1700 when they had to do the preps for the return flight to FRA Monday evening. I can't tell you how many texts I got from friends downtown and in Alexandria and Arlington who said they got to see it as it went down the Potomac. Equally exciting for me was having coordinated the D.C. visit and getting an "all access" pass to see this gentle giant. The one thing everyone said was how quiet it was.

Blinky planes now available!

Those popular blinky planes that were handed out at the airports are now available at the Lufthansa Webstore. C'mon...you know you want one! Go to http://lufthansa.promoshops.com/ and click on "Fun Stuff" to order one for only $3 each. And while you're there, check out all our other cool Lufthansa products. Don't delay, order something today! (Can you tell I work in Marketing, or what?)
NYCEA/M
Susan Vaughan

Photos from A380 flight JFK-ORD 20MAR2007

These photos keep coming to my inbox in the form of a 2MB Powerpoint presentation. I would have uploaded them to Picasa, but I felt the captions are important, so to preserve them I exported it to HTML.

As far as I can determine, the photos are credited to Michael Schlicting of United Ground Handling Services. Although he didn't share them with me personally, I am glad he shared them with others in our industry. Thanks, Michael!

A380 landing at Dulles

Found this video of a beautiful night landing of the A380 at Washington Dulles International earlier this week.

A380 promo video by Oliver Braun

YouTube suggested this video as related to the ones we have been uploading. I have to say that the graphics are quite amazing, very realistic indeed!

A380 safety video

Director of Customer Relations and Marketing Marcus Casey provided us with this clip of the A380 safety video, captured during its demo flight over Manhattan on March 21.

Inside day two at JFK

Wednesday was a much longer day than Monday. I was invited to an interior tour at Hangar 19 at 13:00 and nearly got lost on the way. Inside the hangar, a loungy tent with sofas, refreshments, and a coat check provided a comfortable spot to mingle among media and Airbus/Lufthansa execs. Many of my colleagues provided support at the affair, checking people in and giving out tour boarding passes.

Tours groups were about seven people in size, and Airbus VP Communications Clay McConnell escorted each group to the aircraft outside. Along the way he gave an informative chat, which included already known facts like the craft's height, wingspan, and engine thrust. However, he also pointed out that the plane is number 007 and that the tailsign ends in "JB" for James Bond. Additionally it can travel at 85% of the speed of sound - very impressive given its rave reviews for operating quietly, inside and out.

Clay explained that this aircraft is designed to test cabin systems, which means that its appointments were not standardized throughout; rather many different cabin options were on display. For instance, in some sections the seating configuration was 3-4-3 like the 747, and in others it was 2-4-2 like the A340. Different sections of the Economy Class cabin boasted varying color schemes and upholstery, and overhead bin sizes varied as well. The Business Class section was on the upper deck, while Lufthansa has already discussed configuring the upper deck for First Class instead.

I enjoyed Clay's introduction so much that after the interior tour, I asked him if he would mind if I recorded it for the blog. He graciously agreed (thanks, Clay :) I will update this post on Monday with the video.

Update: here is the intro video, as promised.