Saturday, November 21, 2009 PARIS: The first Air France A380 super jumbo reached New York with 380 passengers who had bid a total $450,000 in a charity auction organized by the airline.The airline said in a statement that the money will go to the Air France Foundation, which helps children in difficulty. Nearly 90% of the bidders were French, the airline said.Air France is the first European owner of Airbus's biggest plane, which it will fly with 538 seats and is already flown by Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Australia's Qantas.An A380 costs $327 million at catalog prices, more than four times the cost of a single-aisle A320. Airlines often negotiate substantial discounts to the list price.Air France will start full service with the plane on Nov. 23, with daily flights between Paris and New York, and later to Johannesburg.Airbus has taken 200 orders from 16 customers for the A380, of which it has delivered 20.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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