Floating luxury, super-sized

It was -- in so many ways -- a journey of Titanic proportions.

I left behind fires in Orange County and resultant evacuations in my hometown of Irvine. My family was secure but well-prepared for a quick departure if it became necessary.

For 17 hours last week, I joined hundreds of aviation thrill-seekers who had crossed oceans, traversed continents and let imaginations run wild while wondering what lay ahead. Nothing like this had happened in nearly four decades.

We were to be the first regular passengers on the newest, largest, splashiest, costliest -- and, yes, most comfy -- passenger jet ever. The Airbus 380 was big as a mansion and dolled up for one hot party.

This was obvious as we arrived on a muggy October morning at Changi International Airport in Singapore. Some passengers showed up in Rolls-Royce limousines, stepping out onto a red carpet -- actually, for this occasion, it was blue. Some were decked out in Armani suits and dresses by Chanel. Drivers in black uniforms and caps unloaded Louis Vuitton luggage. One family even brought along their nanny to take care of the flight’s youngest passenger, a 10-month-old boy.

As nearly 500 people waited to board the plane, it was hard not to conjure up images of the Titanic -- the luxury liner then known as the Queen of the Seas -- before it set sail for New York, hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic.

But this was a day reserved for a Queen of the Skies.

Beyond the boarding gate sat a gigantic double-deck plane with a wingspan nearly the length of a football field. Inside, on the main deck, were a dozen “suites” with sliding doors, a fold-out, full-size bed, a separate leather seat and a 23-inch LCD video screen. They were perhaps the most luxurious cabins of any airliner flying.

“How can anyone beat this?” asked Kelly Daoud, a Palm Springs corporate travel agent who paid $10,100 for a suite on Singapore Airlines Flight 380. The seven-hour flight would take us from Singapore to Sydney, Australia. Seats on the flight were auctioned off on EBay, with proceeds going to charities in Singapore and Australia.

Passengers couldn’t miss the eerie similarities to the maiden voyage of another super-liner nearly a century earlier, though few dared to utter the name of the ship, particularly before and during the flight. Those who did slip were immediately admonished or just got the evil eye.

“It feels like the maiden voyage of the Titanic,” said Stephanie Mogol-Wood, who perhaps emboldened by her glass of Champagne inadvertently violated the taboo before being quickly silenced by husband Dean Wood.

“I know everyone’s thinking it,” he told her, “but don’t say it.”

At the front of the cabin was a grand staircase leading to the upper deck and business-class seats so wide that during flight two passengers often sat together in a single to chat.

In the back of the plane, behind drawn curtains, were 399 economy seats, better and larger than most coach accommodations but still crammed together 10 in a row. The economy cabin looked much like what one would expect on the main deck of a 747, the Boeing jumbo jet that has been dethroned by the A380 after a 37-year reign as the world’s largest airliner.

Each roomy coach seat had a 10.6-inch video screen, larger than those in first class on many other airlines.

And it was in the coach section where the biggest party rolled on nonstop throughout the flight and even during landing, when the hooting and shouting was so loud it could be heard on the upper deck, where more-subdued business-class passengers wondered who had let the “hooligans” on the plane.

Francisco Miramontes and two buddies from Italy wore custom-made T-shirts that read, “I’m first to fly the A380.” They spent much of the flight accosting flight attendants in their quest to get the autographs of all 33 members of the cabin crew and the four pilots.

No wonder then that many of the passengers got off the plane closely clutching a bag of mementos that the airline had given out during flight, including individualized certificates, signed by the chief pilot, proclaiming that they had been on the first flight of the A380.

How crazy where these enthusiasts? “I got teary-eyed,” Wood gushed after the plane leveled off after taking off from Singapore. “It was beautiful. It felt like we were floating.”

I wasn’t that emotional, but I did feel a personal attachment to the plane, having seen its wings being riveted in Wales and its fuselage being snapped together in Hamburg, Germany.

I once stood inside the thickest part of the wing -- there was enough headroom for 7-foot-1 basketball player Shaquille O’Neil -- marveling and wondering how anything this big could stay in the air.

As the aerospace writer for The Times, I’ve followed its difficult journey from the day Airbus decided to build it in 2000 to the day that its likable program manager, Charles Champion, was replaced after production problems delayed delivery by two years. It was an unprecedented $6-billion debacle that drove Airbus -- and the lofty ideas of European cooperation -- to its knees for a time.

So naturally the first flight was an unforgettable thrill for me. There is no doubt it is the quietest and smoothest plane flying today -- a refrain passengers would repeat often. But I’m not sure if I’d want to be the last passenger to get off the Megaliner when airlines begin cramming in 600, 700 or even up to 800 passengers.

For now, carriers such as Singapore Airlines have resisted turning the A380 into a gigantic flying bus and are hoping to turn the flights into a luxury experience by opting to limit the number of seats to about 500.

Still the inaugural flight would have more people flying on a plane than ever before, so I was watching carefully for baggage fiascoes, cramped quarters or long lines as critics predicted.

But on this day, it was all free liquor, amiable chitchat and snickering about the extra-large bathrooms and the full-size beds in first-class suites that can be combined into one.

“Everyone who has seen this has the same thought: It’s a honeymoon suite at the very least,” said Kris Trexler, a Los Angeles film editor who sat in coach but checked out the suites. “At the prices they’re charging, the flight attendants should look the other way.”

On Wednesday, the airline addressed the issue with a public reminder that passengers should “observe standards that don’t cause offense to other customers and crew.”

Don’t expect to see these A380s planes flying in the U.S. any time soon. Most of them will be operating in Asia and Europe. U.S. flights will begin late next year when Qantas Airways launches service between Australia and Los Angeles.

For now the novelty lingers. Seats are selling fast and the flights for the next two months are more than 90% full. “It’s enjoying celebrity status right now,” Singapore Airlines spokesman James Boyd said. “In terms of consumer response, the plane has a very high curiosity factor.”

When I got back home last Saturday after a 20-hour flight from Singapore, the hot topic at our dinner table wasn’t about firestorms or the schools closing because of the unhealthy air.

“Did you get to try the bed?” one of my teenage daughters asked about the suites. “Was it nice? When can we fly in it?”

When told it’ll probably cost $7,500 to fly in a suite, the conversation abruptly moved on to matters more mundane to them, like the fire.

peter.pae@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Singapore Airlines Flight 380

Distance from Singapore

to Sydney: 3,960 miles

Length of flight: 7 hours, 8 minutes

Passengers: 468

Cabin crew: 33

Pilots: 4

Cabin: 50% more floor space than a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet

Volume: 5,150 cubic feet, or enough to fit

4.5 million tennis balls

Length: 239 feet, 6 inches

Wingspan: 261 feet, 8 inches

Total weight

of Flight 380 at takeoff:

930,000 pounds

Total weight

of Flight 380’s passengers:

74,400 pounds

Toilets: 14

Movies on demand available: 100