Coronavirus weirdness: Singapore Air is transforming parked planes into pop-up restaurants

[Shawn Knight]

Editor's take: Covid-19 has transformed 2020 into what has to be the most bizarre year in modern history. From cardboard cutouts replacing fans at sporting events and fake crowd noise to toilet paper shortages, remote schooling and the end of in-person tech conferences, measures to curb the virus’ spread have made this year feel more like an episode of Black Mirror than reality.

In that light, Singapore Airlines’ latest stunt is par for the course.

In an effort to remain afloat and generate revenue, the struggling airline company will soon be converting two A380 passenger planes into “pop-up” restaurants. Patrons will head to Singapore’s Changi Airport, board the plane at the time of their reservation and enjoy a meal from the comfort of their seat.

Pricing ranges from S$642 (around $473) for a meal in a suite to around S$53.50 (about $40) for a seat in economy class. Guests will even be able to pay using their frequent flyer miles.

Due to social distancing guidelines, only about half of the seats in each aircraft will be utilized for dining, we're told.

The whole thing will take place on October 24 and 25 and according to Bloomberg, tickets for the unique dining experience sold out within 30 minutes. A wait list is also being created in hopes of accommodating additional guests interested in the experience.

Image credit: G Tipene, Agent Wolf

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/87073-coronavirus-weirdness-singapore-air-transforming-parked-planes-pop.html

 

[Uncle Al]

So, for fine dining you get a 747 or 757 and for fast food like taco's you get a Cessna 150 ...... makes sense ...

 

[Squid Surprise]

Well, the air filtering system on most aircraft is FAR superior to any restaurant... so if you MUST dine indoors, this would actually be a good choice...

The flaw, of course, is that you'd be eating airplane food... which, if memory serves me correctly, many would pay NOT to eat!

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Breaks my heart to see this become of theA380-800

 

[Timmeer]

A massive part of this article is missing.
Before Singapore Airlines had flights to no-where. Just around to earn some money.
Environment activist were against this and Singapore Airline stopped, and this is their alternative to still earn some money

 

[VariableSpike]

A massive part of this article is missing.
Before Singapore Airlines had flights to no-where. Just around to earn some money.
Environment activist were against this and Singapore Airline stopped, and this is their alternative to still earn some money

Money may be a factor, but not as much as you think - the main issue is holding slots (can't remember if this is the actual name of the term) which the airlines pay for to keep their planes at the airport and use their facilities etc. so they can have regular flights from there - they pay a ton of money for them, as the airline of course wants their planes at the major hubs, to the point that airlines pay hundreds of millions of dollars for their slots - the problem is that under IATA regulations, an airline can lose the rights to the slot (and the airport will then offer the slot to other interested airlines) if they don't use within 80% of their stated slot allocation - this wasn't waived until very recently, and up till that point they would have had to fly ghost flights from the airport (ideally to another one which they need a ghost flight for) to keep the slots - obviously this causes a lot of unneccesary pollution and fuel wasting, so the IATA can waive this if need be, which they eventually did for COVID-19, but not immediately. (This was also done in the past for events like the SARS epidemic and even earlier for the world wars and things like the great depression) - the other issue is that Airplanes don't like standing still in in airport and need to be actively maintained even when not flying, so seemingly they are trying to recuperate the cost by offering spaces in an airplane that would be effectively "on" anyway, so its a net profit in effect - its effectively half money, half staying competitive for the future when flights return to some kind of normality.