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Eos, the first single-class, premium transatlantic airline, is offering service between New York JFK and London Stansted airports. The airline features a revolutionary 48 "suite" cabin configuration onboard every Eos plane. Each guest enjoys an unprecedented 21 square feet of personal space. This represents 40% more space than traditional top tier business class. The Eos "suite" is designed to enhance the flight experience - whether the guest is working alone or in groups or relaxing. Each guest suite includes a second companion seat that allows travelers to comfortably meet, work or dine together.

"Our customers have told us that the Eos in-flight experience surpasses private jets for comfort, the ability to work in groups or relax in private." said David Spurlock, founder and chief executive officer of Eos.

The Eos experience is rooted in the cabin configuration, innovative seat design and service oriented attitude. Due to the patented design, flexible configuration and staggered seating, the Eos cabin blends the exclusive feel of a top-tier international first class cabin with the privacy of a corporate jet.
Recognizing each traveler's need to arrive at their destination refreshed, the Eos seat fully reclines into a private, six foot, six inch flat bed and is accented with a cashmere blanket and Tempur-Pedic® pillow. In addition, each suite located adjacent to a window has direct floor level access to the aisle for exceptional comfort and convenience.

Eos flies from New York JFK's Terminal 4, which recently underwent a $1.4 billion renovation to offer enhanced passenger facilities, consolidated ticketing and baggage operations, improved duty free and retail offerings and upgraded restaurants. JFK is conveniently located fifteen miles by highway from midtown Manhattan.

In the UK, Eos flies from London Stansted, the fastest-growing major airport in Europe. Stansted's state-of-the-art, glass and steel terminal, designed by Sir Norman Foster, provides convenient check-in facilities and an array of retail shops, restaurants and bars. Operated by BAA, the world's leading airport company, Stansted is situated within easy reach of London's Canary Wharf business district and is approximately 36 miles from central London - a convenient, 45-minute trip via the Stansted Express rail service.

Eastbound flights depart New York JFK at 7:05 p.m. and arrive London Stansted at 7:30 a.m.; westbound flights depart London Stansted at 10:30 a.m. and arrive New York JFK at 1:29 p.m. Beginning January 3, 2006, Eos will offer a second daily flight between New York and London, departing New York JFK at 9:15 p.m., arriving London Stansted at 9:40 a.m.; and departing London Stansted at 4:15 p.m., arriving New York JFK at 7:14 p.m.

The A380 took off from Toulouse airport on the first leg of its nine-day tour of Asia and Australia. It is flying directly to Singapore where the media and VIPs, including Singapore’s Minister of Transport, Yeo Cheow Tong, will visit the aircraft.

From Singapore, it will fly to Brisbane, Australia where Qantas’ logo will be applied before the aircraft flies over the Gold Coast and Sydney Harbour and land at Sydney for more VIP and media visits.

The nine-day trip gives customers Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Malaysian Airlines a chance to see the aircraft ahead of first deliveries while also allowing airports to test equipment and demonstrate their readiness for the A380’s entry into commercial service.

Various airport compatibility tests will be carried out at Australia’s Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne airports along with Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Airport. Tests were planned for Singapore but these have been postponed due to scheduling conflicts. The test aircraft will also take part in a number of promotional activities in each country.

The eight crewmembers comprises Jacques Rosay, chief test pilot; Peter Chandler, experimental test pilot; Claude Lelaie, senior vice president flight division; test pilot Frank Chapman; Fernando Alonso, chief flight test engineer and vice president flight test division; test flight engineer Gérard Desbois; flight test engineer Jean-Francois Bousquie; and flight test engineer Sylvie Loisel-Labaste – the only female crew member.

But in the airport, ghosts of the disaster remain:

Many airport shops and fast-food booths remain closed. Most of the open ones operate with skeleton crews. Some restaurants have posted abbreviated menus scrawled with black marker and taped on food counters next to a cashier. Patrons can get a cup of gumbo, but hamburgers and Philly steak sandwiches prevail for now over such other New Orleans traditions as shrimp and oysters, casualties of the storm.

Fewer than one-third of the 166 daily round-trip flights once considered business as usual are arriving this week, according to Michelle Duffourc, the airport's public-relations manager. "We're pleased to be at a third. It's a reduced schedule, but that's post-Katrina," she said. "There is no normal now.” Fifty-three round-trip flights are scheduled for today, Duffourc said. By mid-December, 60 daily flights are expected.

Many airport businesses remain shut because large numbers of employees who evacuated the area haven't returned, she said. Others, including more than half of the 220 people who work for airport administration, have been laid off because of lagging revenue since the hurricane hit Aug. 29.

Few people who fly into New Orleans International these days come to play.

Most are businesspeople, volunteers, or relatives of Orleanians whose homes were damaged. Most are here to aid in the rebuilding effort.

Other travelers are area homeowners returning home, some for the first time since the storm. That was the reason for Sheila Wilson's flight from Los Angeles, where a friend took her in after she was evacuated.

"I'm meeting... with my insurance company," explained Wilson, who owns a home in storm-battered Carrollton, a section of New Orleans.

Karen Keeling traveled from her home in Union, Ky., to help her mother, Anne Graveson, clean up the family's water-damaged house in hard-hit Slidell, a city just north of New Orleans.

Graveson has salvaged her sense of humor despite a daily 75-mile commute from a friend's home in Hattiesburg, Miss., and the wait for an as-yet-undelivered trailer promised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"Half of the walls in my house are down. I call it an open floor plan," she said.

At the airport, frivolity seems to have vanished with the normal pace and the seafood, say some airport employees.

"These people are wore out," said Herb Muller, a baggage screener with the Transportation Security Administration. "You tell them a joke, and they don't laugh."

Like much of the city, the airport "feels like a ghost town," he said.

With cruises canceled, conventions moved elsewhere, and many hotels filled with government workers and police for the recovery effort, it may take time to bring back the New Orleans' famous gaiety.

Bettie Scott, a ticket checker at the airport, notices a solemn mood at the airport. But she sees the pall gradually lifting.

"It's happening slowly but surely," she said. "Things are coming back."