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UPDATE: Air France confirms A380 to ply London-Paris route

Published: 13/05/2010 - Filed under: News »

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It’s definite. Business Traveller can exclusively reveal that Air France will operate its A380 super jumbo into London Heathrow from Paris CDG on selected dates between June 12 and August 30.

Bookings can now be made on the carrier’s website with economy class returns starting at £80 from Heathrow and €80 out of Paris CDG.

Business class is also available although it is unclear whether or not Air France will be selling first class accommodation on this sector. Instead it may decide to leave the front cabin empty or upgrade some of its favoured passengers into the luxury seating.

What must be stressed is that the A380 will operate only on certain days of the week and then it is rostered for one specific flight in each direction.

The super jumbo will be found operating AF1980 out of CDG at 1005 and into Heathrow at 1125. After a longer than usual turnaround the A380 will return to CDG with AF1981 at 1250 to arrive back into CDG at 1505.

The days of operation are:

• June 12 to June 30 and August 1 to August 30 - every Saturday, Sunday and Monday
• July 1 to July 31 - every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Bear in mind though that this is a special service. An advisory on the Air France website states, “For internal or operating reasons, the carrier may change the type of aircraft without advance warning.”

For more information visit airfrance.co.uk, and for more information on Air France’s A380 aircraft click here.

Report by Alex McWhirter

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COMMENTS » 

continentalclub - 11/05/2010 14:46

What a super idea; pragmatic and hugely creative at the same time. At this rate, Heathrow will be awash with UglyBuses!

handsomestpete - 12/05/2010 08:23

I seem to have heard that First class wont be available---can anyone confirm?

continentalclub - 13/05/2010 14:22

That's correct; AF are selling Economy, Premium Economy & Business on the flights - and they have a special promo page live now at

http://bit.ly/cB2agx.

BusinessTraveller - 13/05/2010 15:24

We now have some more details of this special A380 service by Air France.

The A380 being used into London Heathrow will have 80 business class and 449 economy class seats. First class will not be sold.

There is currently no actual premium economy seating on Air France’s A380 (future A380 aircraft will feature the carrier's new long-haul premium economy product, and existing aircraft are also due to be retrofitted with premium economy at a later date).

However Air France does appear to be selling a premium economy fare for these flights, presumably with more flexible conditions than the Voyageur fare. There's also the possibility that they could use the economy seats on the upper deck of the aircraft as premium economy, as it's a smaller cabin than the main economy cabin on the lower deck, and it's positioned behind business class.

A return economy fare starts at £80 with business class from £280. A one-way business class rate will cost from £180.

Air France is using the A380 on these specific dates in order to meet summer demand but also to assist with its crew qualification and training programme.

According to flightglobal.com this particular A380 would normally be marooned on the ground at Paris CDG in between operating flights on the Johannesburg route. Using the plane to operate a return service to Heathrow will, says flightglobal, “capitalize on the A380’s downtime".

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