Singapore Airlines bringing world’s biggest passenger plane to Auckland route

Singapore Airlines will bring the giant Airbus A380 to Auckland next summer.

The A380 is the world’s biggest commercial passenger aircraft and the only full-length double-deck jetliner.

The airline told the Herald it will use the A380-800 on flight SQ285 from Singapore to Auckland.

The return service, SQ286, will use the super-jumbo from January 18 to March 29.

Singapore Airlines confirmed this afternoon it would redeploy the A380 from Frankfurt to service the Auckland route.

The smaller Airbus A350-900 has been used on the Auckland service but the airline said the A380 would replace a Boeing 777-300ER next summer.

For the Frankfurt service, the company would replace the superjumbo with a 777 and use an A350-900 for an additional service to the German city.

“The Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group regularly reviews our network operations,” the airline said.

“We continue to monitor demand closely and adjust our network and capacity accordingly.”

It said SQ285 with the superjumbo would depart Singapore at 10.25pm local time and arrive in Auckland the next day at 1.20pm local time.

The return service would leave Auckland at 3.15pm local time and arrive back at Singapore’s Changi Airport at 8.55pm local time.

Singapore’s time zone is five hours behind Auckland during the New Zealand summer.

Visitor numbers from Singapore have been rising for the past three years.

Stats NZ said in the year to March, about 57,000 people from Singapore visited New Zealand.

That was up from 49,175 the year before and 41,284 in the year to March 2023.

The A380 entered service in 2007 with Singapore Airlines but Emirates operates more of the aircraft than any other airline.

If an all-economy layout is used, the superjumbo can seat up to 853 passengers.

John Weekes is a business journalist covering aviation and court. He has previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and court.