Surprise of the Year’ for the ultimate Emirates and Airbus A380 fan

Emirates and Airbus teamed up to search for the ultimate A380 fan in the UAE ahead of the Dubai Airshow in November. A Facebook competition, jointly organised by Emirates and Airbus, garnered over 1,000 entries in less than three days. To enter, participants had to express why they were ardent fans of the Emirates A380, in less than 380 words.

The winner, Yves Heye, became the envy of aviation enthusiasts when he was treated to a special VIP tour of the Emirates’ first two-class configured A380, which was unveiled at the Dubai Airshow.

Yves Heye’s winning streak did not end there. His tour concluded with the ‘Surprise of the Year’ when he was invited to visit Toulouse, France, for an exclusive tour of the A380 manufacturing facility. The ‘Ultimate A380 Fan’ flew to France in December on an Emirates A380 where he witnessed the A380 Final Assembly Line with an Emirates A380 currently under production.

He also visited the A380 mock-up cabin centre and other Airbus facilities. His dream trip concluded with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fly an A380 from Toulouse to Marseille under the command of an Airbus test pilot in a true-to-life flight simulator.

Click here to view a video depicting the ‘Surprise of the Year’ for UAE’s ultimate A380 fan, Yves Heye.

The Emirates A380

The Emirates A380 has flown over 47 million passengers, covering over 700 million kilometres. There are currently 36 A380 destinations on the Emirates network and the airline continues to be at the forefront of A380 deployment with 72 A380 aircraft in operation and 68 more A380 aircraft to be delivered. Birmingham (from 27 March 2016), Prague and Taipei (both from 1 May 2016) will soon join the growing list of Emirates A380 destinations, making Emirates the first and only airline to operate a scheduled A380 service from each of these destinations.