Airbus Confirms First Buyer for Executive/VIP A380

Business Jet Traveler » August 2007

by BJT Staff

Wednesday, August 1, 2007 - 5:00am

Airbus CEO John Leahy has confirmed that the company will be converting a giant A380 airliner to an executive/VIP role for an unnamed buyer. While there are unconfirmed reports about the buyer's identity, Leahy would say only that he is neither American nor European and the airplane would be for his personal use. New York's Edese Doret Industrial Design said it has presented an A380 interior-design proposal to a Middle Eastern customer. The A380, the world's largest airliner with approximately 6,800 square feet of cabin space, costs $300 million with an unfinished interior. Building and installing a personalized cabin would likely add $150 million or more to that price.ꆱ

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“When you get into the larger aircraft it becomes like a hotel, with dozens of staff supporting the plane based in a galley area down below. You have very comprehensive cooking facilities, and on larger aircraft we have looked at theatres, with spiral staircases and a Steinway grand piano. The limitations for what you can put inside a plane are pretty much the limits of physics, and even money cannot always overcome that. Even so, people are still always trying to push [the limits]. ”

-Howard Guy of Design Q, a UK-based consultancy