The world's largest airliner landed at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday with about 450 people aboard, kicking off Southern California's first A380 passenger service and providing a welcome economic boost for the slumping airport.
Qantas Flight 93 from Melbourne, Australia, landed at 7:26 a.m. and was greeted by public officials and Hollywood celebrities including actor John Travolta and singer Olivia Newton-John. The jetliner was scheduled to make its return flight to Australia late Monday.
Passengers, most of them Australians, described the flight as very quiet and smooth. They also said they had little problem getting through customs and retrieving their bags.
"I'm surprised. I'm stunned, actually," said Phillip Prendergast, who flew with his wife, Carmen. "The customs agents were reassuring and friendly, too."
Today marked the start of the first scheduled passenger service of the new A380 at LAX, which by 2012 is expected to serve more super-jumbo jets than anywhere else.
The double-decked Airbus A380 is expected to alter the skies over Southern California much the way Boeing Co.'s 747 did when it began flying out of LAX nearly 40 years ago.
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, on hand for the event, noted that the A380 was "finally here" after a two-year delay and touted how the start of the service would be an economic engine that could pump more than $600 million annually into the region and create 3,000 jobs.
The Qantas flights also will provide a boost to LAX, which is seeing flights dwindle as airlines slash service amid high fuel costs and low demand.
Total weekly departures at LAX are expected to fall nearly 20% in November compared with a year earlier. The deepest cuts have come from U.S. carriers such as United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
But foreign carriers are mitigating some of the falloff. Next week, Emirates Airlines is scheduled to begin nonstop service from LAX to Dubai, and carriers based in South Korea are likely to increase flights to LAX after President Bush last week approved a visa waiver program for that country.
Under the program, which had been mostly confined to Western European allies, South Korean visitors will no longer need a visa if they stay in the U.S. for less than 90 days. It is intended to boost travel by friends and family of South Korean immigrants in the region, which has the largest concentration of South Koreans outside of the Asian country.
