In early Monday morning trade, New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, was 16 cents higher than the US$86.13 a barrel amid mounting tension between Turkey and Kurdish rebels in Iraq. This is a bad news for airlines which are stupid enough not to hedge their fuel price but definitely good news for investors who long oil-related stocks. Thousands of miles away, a small but prosperous nation had a little celebration after waited for about two years.

Singapore Airlines, one of the most successful and profitable airlines in the world took the delivery of the Airbus A380 yesterday. Singapore Airlines which is the first carrier to take full commercial delivery of the long-awaited superjumbo will waste no time and is scheduled to flies the double-decker Airbus A380 into Sydney next week for the first time. In an all-economy configuration, the A380 can a maximum of 853 passengers.
Already been hit with penalties for late delivery and costs five CEOs head on the chopping board in two years, the Singapore superjumbo will nevertheless provides a new way of luxury traveling especially the first-class sleeping cabins – the sleeping suite can be transformed into a stylish office, with its 57.5-centimetre platinum screen and workstation.

A standard return fare for a suite will cost you around 10,500 Singapore dollars ($7,160) on the Singapore-Sydney route, which is about 20-35 percent more than the current top-class fare. Showers, mini-casinos, gyms and beauty salons won’t be available as earlier imagined. However a staircase at each end links the two levels and the business and first class areas have a self-service bar with food and drinks.
Singapore Airlines fitted its jet with 471 seats configured in three classes: 399 economy class seats on both decks, 60 business class seats on the upper deck and 12 luxury suites on the main deck. The good news is that all classes offer an in-flight entertainment system that offers language courses and word-processing and spreadsheet office software, besides regular movies and television channels – there is more leg room too, even in economy. Documents can be downloaded via a USB slot.
Part of the reasons for the purchase was to solve the problem of fuel prices which can only go up given time. Airbus A380 claimed it uses 2.9 litres of fuel per hundred passenger kilometres compared with the aviation industry average of about five litres per one hundred passenger kilometres.

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• If only Malaysia has leaders half of Lee’s Intelligence
• Holy Cow! The Rich and Famous now Fly and Dive
• Reasons Why Oil Price might spikes to $90 and beyond
• Oil price hike – Badawi’s greatest Economic Challenge

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October 16th, 2007 by financetwitter

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