Singapore Airlines launches 60 minute A380 flights

It’s designed to ferry lots of people long distances, in an ultra-quiet flying experience. So flyers would be used to flying the huge Airbus A380 from LA to London, Bahrain to Frankfurt, Melbourne to Hong Kong.

The massive super jumbo airliner wasn’t designed for a short 1 hour hop. But that’s exactly what Singapore Airlines have planned now they’re getting their fleet back in the skies.

The flight is surely one of the shortest scheduled journeys for the mighty A380, between Singapore’s Changi Airport and Kuala Lumpur in next door Malaysia. The flights will be 3 times a week from November 4 to December 2, 2021 as both country’s aviation industries struggle back into the air.

Singapore’s national airline will also kick off its London flights out of Changi from the middle of November as well.

While some of the world’s largest airlines are mothballing their mammoth A380s, or taking them out of service altogether, Singapore Airlines says the plane is a favourite among passengers and “some people just book the A380 specifically to fly on it”. Lufthansa and Air France have already retired their superjumbos.

Another owners of a large A380 fleet, British Airways, is putting the world’s largest passenger jet back into service on short haul London to European destination, specifically to Madrid and Frankfurt. They say it’s to train crews before resuming the profitable transatlantic flights.

Airbus is no longer producing the A380s, after orders evaporated and the largest passenger jet, originally launched in 2005, falling out of favour with a smaller generation of more economical jets coming into service, like Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 series.

Source - The Thaiger

Our VISA AGENT

Yogyakarta welcomes 1.7 million tourists in five months amid pandemic

Amid the still alarming pandemic, Yogyakarta reportedly welcomed 1.67 million tourists between July and November, according to data from two mobile apps published by the local administration: Visiting Jogja and Jogja Pass.

Based on the data, Yogyakarta Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, who is also Yogyakarta’s governor, was certain that the province’s tourist industry would recover quickly.

Hamengkubuwono said during a virtual meeting with the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry on Thursday that the pandemic had impacted tourism and education in Yogyakarta, causing enormous economic losses.

He said the province’s economy was experiencing a contraction, dropping 0.16 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the first quarter of 2020 and 6.7 percent in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, in the third quarter, the contraction was 2.84 percent yoy.

“We hope Yogyakarta’s economy will not be negative at the end of this year,” said Hamengkubuwono, as quoted by tempo.co.

However, Hamengkubuwono admitted that it was not easy to restore tourism and economic activity in general during the pandemic, saying the local administration and community’s commitment to behavioral changes during the so-called new normal period was key to containing the spread of the coronavirus.

Hamengkubuwono said the local administration had urged Yogyakarta’s tourist stakeholders to issue their own protocols related to health and safety.

“The Yogyakarta administration has never issued a regulation to close tourist attractions, hotels or restaurants,” he said, adding that, as the governor, he only made one regulation about health and safety protocols. 

Yogyakarta is among numerous provinces that reopened tourism in mid-2020.

In July, the governor decided to partially reopen the province’s tourist sector and let tourist destinations operate with a limited number of visitors, as he feared a full reopening would be too risky for Yogyakarta.

With regard to a recovery in tourism, Hamengkubuwono said he did not want the community to suffer under local administration regulations.

“We encourage the associations to become the subject and regulate technical matters,” he said.

Tourism in Yogyakarta is going through a challenging time. In addition to the COVID-19 outbreak, Mount Merapi in Magelang, Central Java, has spewed lava in a sign of increased volcanic activity over the past week, according to the Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center (BPPTKG).

Western Region Mt. Merapi Tourism Jeep Association head Dardiri said Mt. Merapi’s alert status left tourism stakeholders with few options and tourist attractions in Sleman regency had experienced a decrease in visitors.

He went on to say that many jeep drivers had begun farming or breeding to make ends meet.

Moreover, the association’s members had also agreed to become disaster mitigation volunteers.

In September, tourism businesspeople in Yogyakarta had demanded that the government establish clear and consistent regulations regarding tourist visits to the area, as the pandemic had pushed down the number of visitors.

Sugihartono, who manages the province’s popular ecotourism destination Dolandeso Boro, told The Jakarta Post that working capital loans alone would not help his business survive if visitor turnout remained low.

Source - TheJakartaPost