(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) It was the world's largest aircraft, taking off for its shortest flight.
On Monday, Emirates launched flight from Dubai to Muscat, flying the world's largest aircraft A380 on a journey that took just 40 minutes to reach its destination.
Interestingly, it takes 35 minutes for an Emirates team of 42 people to clean the mammoth plane, just five minutes shy of its Dubai-Muscat flight time.
"The average flight time (40 minutes) between Dubai and Muscat is only 5 minutes more than the time taken to clean an Airbus A380 by a team of 42 people.
The wiring on an Airbus A380 (500km) is longer than the distance between Dubai and Muscat (340km)," Emirates said while sharing some fun facts on its Twitter account on Monday.
Thank you for the special welcome, Muscat!#ShortestA380Flight https://t.co/kXcVrcaXPQ
- Emirates Airline (@emirates)July 1, 2019
Ready for some fun facts on the world's shortest@AirbusA380 flight between Dubai and Muscat?@DXB @OmanAirports #ShortestA380Flight #FlyEmiratesFlyBetter pic.twitter.com/zHsfAlDOIE
- Emirates Airline (@emirates)July 1, 2019
A passenger will have to fly 3,000 times between Dubai and Muscat on A380 to watch the airline's entire inflight entertainment ice film catalogue. Moreover, Emirates has flown over 4.7 million customers between Dubai and Muscat since 1993 which is equal to capacity of nearly 9,000 A380s, the world's largest carrier in terms of passenger numbers.
Emirates broke its own previous record of shortest A380 flight, which was between Dubai and Doha at a distance of 379 kilometres.
Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research in London, saidin the absence of anything smaller, at least until the airline finalists its B787, A330neo and A350s, Emirates sees more benefit of using A380s on short sectors than have a big heavy asset on the ground.
"Add to the fact that the A380 is not cheap to park, coupled with being based at a congested airport like Dubai International, Emirates is playing the hand it has been dealt," he said, adding that deploying such a large jet on short tourist is not uncommon.
"For example, Air France deployed its A380s between Paris and London when they needed to accumulate pilot training and familiarization; so this sort of usage does happen on short sectors," he added.
The carrier will operate A380s on Dubai- Muscat route in a three-class configuration, with 429 seats in Economy Class on the lower deck, as well as 76 flat-bed seats in Business Class and 14 First Class Private Suites on the upper deck.
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