Air Belgium Receives A340-600

Yesterday. Air Belgium’s first A340-600 OO-ABA, named Pieter Paul Rubens after the famous Flemish painter, was delivered to the airline.
This delivery was celebrated by a huge show for press and staff and was also the high point of the 2 years Air Belgium celebrations.

"After an awesome show with loads of dance, music, graphical effects and smoke our new plane rolled into the hangar. The A340-600 is one of the largest planes currently in commercial service and we are extremely happy to operate it as well now, " CEO Danny Stess said.

"It’s our new flagship plane and will enable us to keep one of the most modern virtual fleets in the virtual aviation world because this means we can start retiring the first of our older MD11 planes."

The first MD11 is expected to leave the fleet in april for it’s new owner, Air Lambert, as more A340-600′s are delivered and put into service.

The first A340-600′s will be seen flying on A340-300 routes to train crew members and gain experience with the type.
Starting May the A340-600 will start flying on their dedicated routes with Brussels – Rio de Janeiro – Buenos Aires being the first.

"Even though the original order was for 6 A340-600′s and 4 A340-500′s we have converted the -500 orders into more -600 so we will be receiving a total of 10 A340-600′s. All planes have been named after a famous Belgian painter and will have pictures of famous artworks of these painters fitted on-board as decorations, " Mr. Stess continued.

Service points installed
Air Belgium has decided to start installing service points through out the terminals in Brussels to improve customer services. These service points will include a machine to provide tea and coffe, a water dispenser, a magazine rack from where passengers can collect their free Air Belgium brochures and in-flight magazines and some power points to recharge their laptops.

"We hope to serve the needs of our passengers even better by doing this and will install these points in more airports if they are a succes."

Business seating reconfigured
"We would like to inform that we are going to reconfigure our business A320′s and A321′s. We will lower the amount of Diamond class seats because of low demand and add more (Premium) Discovery class seats to meet market demands, " Mr. Stess announced today.

"Every night one plane will go to the hangar to adjust the cabin and will be ready to start daily services again in the morning. This operation should not take too long so that any possible inconvenience for passengers will be minimal."

Visit Air Belgium at http://www.flyabb.com