In the last two weeks, Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), the USA’s fourth busiest airport, has had new very long distance Airbus 380 routes added.
Qantas upgraded their non stop Sydney -DFW service to an A380 from a 747 on September 29th. This upgrade means that the longest scheduled commercial flight in the world is now served by the largest passenger jet in the world! The flight is approximately 12, 200 km (8,600 miles). It takes 15 hours 35 mins from Sydney to DFW and 16hr 55mins from DFW due to the headwinds! Thats a few movies on a flight advertised as “just a hop”!
The A380 on the first flight arrived with the traditional Kangaroo on the tail wearing a hat and bandana! Check that out at 6mins 30sec in this Joe Streetman video (after the water cannon salute at 3 mins 38secs):
Bypassing LAX is a much better alternative as DFW is a nicer airport and I find the connections with One World partner American are much easier. If you are travelling between the middle of the USA or the East coast and Australia, this is a great way to go.
October 1st saw Emirates replace their daily B777 non stop service to Dubai. Their service takes 16 hours to Dallas and 14 hours 45 minutes away from Dallas (those headwinds again). Both the take off and landing of the very first Emirates A380 service to Dallas are captured in this video by Matt Gee (water cannon at 55secs).
To deal with the changes, DFW reconfigured gates D15 and D16, to simultaneously accommodate two A380s on the ground. The airport also modified ramps and taxiways in order to accommodate the giant plane.
Now there are more options that make it possible to fly the 380 around the world from Dallas including:
- Dallas to Sydney to Dubai to Dallas
- Dallas to Paris to Bangkok to Singapore to Sydney to Dallas.
DFW is the fifth US airport to welcome the superjumbo. The others are:
- Los Angeles – Air France, British, Korean, Qantas, Singapore
- JFK – Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa,
- San Francisco – Air France, Lufthansa
- Houston – Lufthansa
- Miami – Lufthansa
- Washington Dulles – Air France, British Airways
- Atlanta- Korea
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Tuesday Trip Report: Lufthansa’s A380
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