The champagne glasses were sent flying yesterday as the French pilot of the big new double-decker bus of the sky, the Airbus 380, made a sudden climb to avoid turbulence during its first passenger flight over Australia.
The Qantas cabin crew in the gallery, who had never flown in the plane before, were unprepared for the sudden climb.

But the sound of shattering glass was one of the few disturbances on the super-quiet mega-jet, which will be seen in Australian skies later this year when Singapore Airlines becomes the first to take delivery of the new-generation aircraft.

Qantas will get the first of its order of 20 A380s in August, putting them on the routes from Melbourne and Sydney to Los Angeles a few months later.

The guest passengers on yesterday’s round trip from Sydney to Canberra included 92-year-old pioneer aviatrix Nancy Bird-Walton and Nine Network host Kerri-Anne Kennerly.

But among the most enthusiastic was Qantas director and former Defence chief Peter Cosgrove, who said the beauty of the A380 was that it would keep the cost of international travel within the budget of ordinary Australians.

“This is such a fuel-efficient, modern aircraft which takes so many people such long distances that the great birthright of Australians – to be able to afford air travel overseas – will remain intact,” he said.

Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti insisted the airline was not going to take the sardine-can option. “We will have somewhere between 450 and 500 passengers,” he said.