Emirates go A380 on trans-Tasman

Emirates A380 Business Class seat

You can now fly on the world's largest passenger aircraft on the route between Australia and New Zealand, with Emirates putting the A380 Superjumbo onto the route between Sydney and Auckland.

Carrying almost 500 passengers, the Emirates A380-800 will initially fly between Auckland and Dubai, via Sydney, three times a week but will increase as the company grows its fleet of A380s. It leaves Sydney at 9.30am and arrives in Auckland just after 2pm.

Emirates A380 First class bar

The plane features 14 first class "suites", 76 business class "pods" and 399 economy seats.

The first class suites are the height of luxury, with soft leather, fully reclining seats, a work desk and built-in illuminated vanity mirror, personal electrically controlled mini bar and what is called "room service". In effect this means you can press a button, and the crew come to you, just as in economy.

There are two shower spas available to first class passengers on a booking system that allocates about 20 minutes to each passenger, although bookings will be at a premium on the short run to Auckland.

Emirates A380 First Class shower

In First there is a small stand up bar, at the top of the stairs, and there is also a larger bar between First and Business, which also serves canapes, which is similar to that on Virgin Atlantic.

Business Class actually seems a step down from that in pervious generations of Emirates Aircraft, with the previously large and heavily padded business class seats being replaced with a narrower, harder version in order to make way for the new gadgets. These include a "pod" that includes a mini bar, privacy panel between seats, laptop and shoe compartments and a touch screen seat controller and in-flight entertainment system.

Prices for a return start at AU$703 for economy, AU$1626 for business, and AU$2156 for First.