ANA debuts innovations on Airbus A380 to Hawaii and the first service touched down on Saturday morning Hawaiian time at Honolulu International Airport.
The last inaugural flight of any new A380 customer airline marked the end of Airbus’s aspirations to win big with the world’s biggest aircraft, which was first commercially flown in 2007 by Singapore Airlines.
While the very aircraft of the world’s first scheduled A380 is due to be scrapped in France soon, there are around 230 A380s currently operating with 14 airlines.
ANAのエアバスA380型機初便、ホノルルに到着。#avgeek #a380 #ana #JA381A pic.twitter.com/wGsZfpkSl5
— TRAICY（トライシー） (@traicycom) May 24, 2019
Emirates will take the last of 14 remaining A380s on order until the end of 2021 when production will be shut down, while ANA will receive its third and last A380 during the upcoming Northern summer.
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Airbus had long seen the Japanese market as a particularly attractive one for its giant aircraft, though in the end and with the bankruptcy of low-cost operator Skymark in 2014, which had six A380s on order, it ended up seeing just three A380s sold to Japan.
ANA has dedicated its A380s specifically to the lucrative Hawaiian market, one of the most competitive routes out of Japan. A total of nine airlines, including low-cost carriers Air Asia X and Sccot, ply routes to the coveted holiday destination. More than 1.5 million Japanese tourists visit Hawaii every year, spending over US$ 2.2bn.
It is ANA’s goal to increase its portion of the total share of seats offered between Japan and Hawaii from 15% in summer 2018 to 25% one year later, with all three new aircraft in the fleet and ten A380 flights a week from July 1.
Between Tokyo and Honolulu alone, ANA has three daily flights, which are supposedly all to be switched to A380 services. This is possible as flights are relatively short, taking about seven hours eastbound and eight hours westbound on return to Japan.
The ANA A380, called “today’s global standard bearer” by ANA CEO Yuj Hirako during the inaugural gate event at Narita airport, is therefore heavily marketed and specially branded, both in Japan and Hawaii itself. The airline has chosen the Hawaiian sea turtles called Honu as its theme, picked from an entry in a design competition in 2016, which had 2,197 submissions.
The winner, Chihiro Masuoka of Tokyo, was among the Business Class passengers of the inaugural flight. The differently coloured turtle characters appear both in the outside liveries of the aircraft as well in many different functions inside the cabin.
ANA’s configuration of the A380 with 520 seats in four classes is the second-densest layout among all A380 operators, just surpassed by Emirates’ two-class cabin boasting 617 seats.
ANA is the only airline offering a First Class between Japan and Hawaii, and the eight First suites on the A380 have been newly designed, debuting to Honolulu on the inaugural flight.
The staggered 56 Business Class seats as well as the 73 seats in Premium Economy, all located on the upper deck, are also found on the airline’s Boeing 787-9 and most recent the 787-10.
Exclusively on its A380 services ANA debuts some interesting innovations: At the back end of Economy Class, whose 383 seats fill the whole main deck, there is a so-called “multi-purpose room”, which is not a lavatory despite looking fairly similar to such a cubicle, but serves mothers and babies or passengers who want to change clothes. The rear staircase is not in spiral shape but square, an Airbus offer only ever ANA took on for the A380, gaining the airline two rows of seats due to more efficient use of bulkhead space. The safety video also features the turtle characters, while probably as the first airline ANA is explicitly stating “photography is prohibited during evacuation”.
However difficult to police, this will be in the harsh reality of an emergency, it is especially timely recalling the recent behaviour of many passengers after their Sukhoi Superjet crash-landed in Moscow, of which many videos shot during evacuation emerged. Another ANA world premiere on the A380 is that all flight attendants are wearing headsets, supposedly to enhance communications between the cabin crew and replacing intercom use. On the inaugural flight, Airlineratings.com didn’t witness any staff member actually speaking into her headset.
Economy Class passengers benefit from another innovation: They receive a drinks voucher for “bills” restaurant in Waikiki, founded by Aussie chef and restaurateur Bill Granger. The outlet and that’s the innovative part, stores passenger’s luggage while they enjoy brunch or a stroll through Honolulu’s tourist district to kill time after an early morning arrival before they can check into their hotels.
One passenger on the ANA A380 premiere was travel agent Isabelle Chu from Perth. “I have done all 14 A380 inaugural flights of all operators”, she proudly told AirlineRatings.com
“These were often lavish affairs, I will always remember the world’s first A380 flight on Singapore Airlines, with Korean Air or Etihad being other notables”, Chu commented. In comparison, the ANA A380 launch was a fairly low-key affair, mostly aimed at the Japanese market, she realized. “I’m glad I did all these flights, but I’m also glad that this is the last one”, Chu said before boarding a Qantas 747 flight back to Australia, two hours after landing in Hawaii.
