British Airways’ New A380 LAX-LHR Red Carpet Route

On September 24, British Airways (BA) launched their inaugural A380 (the largest commercial jetliner today) service between Los Angeles and London Heathrow, and I was extremely fortunate to have been an invited guest on that flight—and even luckier to sit up front in one of their First class open suites. Below are some of the plane’s features and a photo gallery from the first flight, which began at and includes photos of LAX’s brand-spanking new Tom Bradley International Terminal, which reopened on September 18.
If you asked me what my favorite aircraft was, my answer has been Boeing’s 747-400 for the past 20 years. It’s just an incredible bird—but unfortunately, like everything, it has aged and is now outdated. Now my answer is the 777-300 and A380 (though I haven’t flown the new 747-800 yet). So when British Airways announced they were replacing some of their 747-400 planes with A380s I was excited.
British Airways has twelve Airbus A380s on order and the first two have already been delivered—and are currently flying what British Airways is billing “The Red Carpet Route – LAX-LHR.”  The next planes will be operating between London and Hong Kong starting October 22, 2013, and between London and Johannesburg starting February 12, 2014. BA has configured their A380s with four classes of service: First, Club World (Business), World Traveler Plus (Premium Economy), and World Traveler (Economy). Below are the seating details as I found them on SeatGuru.com.