AIRLINE AIMS TO TOP LUXURY COMPETITION

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Emirates will carry around 500 litres of extra water weighing 500kg in its new Airbus A380 so first class passengers can take a shower.

The world's biggest passenger plane will fly out of Auckland from February 1.

In the hot contest to produce the most luxurious plane, Emirates is touting its cabin fit-out as the most comfortable in the sky.

It unveiled the first of 58 of its A380s at a ceremony in Hamburg yesterday after a two-year delivery delay caused by production problems at the European consortium, Airbus.

The plane is heavy with wood and leather and, besides the showers, features a cocktail bar for first class and business class travellers.

Those who qualify for the shower will book their 25-minutes slots, which will include five minutes in the shower itself and then time to dry themselves and get dressed again.

They will be able to keep track of how much time they have left in the shower by looking at a traffic light system in the cubicle itself.

Emirates President Tim Clark said the extra 500kg of water - about 25 per cent more than usually carried - had impacted on attempts by Emirates and Airbus to cut weight in the double decker aircraft to reduce fuel use.

He was looking for ways to trim weight off the aircraft, including reducing the amount of paper such as magazines in seat pockets.

Emirates highlighted the low fuel use per passenger: based on a full plane it will offer fuel economy as low as 3.1 litres per 100 passenger/km, which it says is better than that of a Toyota Prius hybrid passenger car.

The first five 489-seat, long range aircraft will be used on some of the busiest routes, including New York (August 1), London Heathrow (December 1) and Sydney and Auckland from February.

Emirates has also ordered two other versions of the jet, including three-class, 517-seat medium range; and 604-seat, two-class medium range.

Chairman and chief executive of Emirates Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said that while Emirates may not have been the first airline to receive the new generation aircraft, it was the first to place a firm order for it eight years ago.

"We have stood firm on our commitment to the A380," he said. "We congratulate Airbus for having created the greener, cleaner, quieter, smarter aircraft."

The airline's order of 58 A380s is worth about $67 billion.

Emirates has said it does not intend to have A380-specific fares.

"We will continue to differentiate our prices between premium-suite versus non-suite product and also [on long-haul] non-stop versus one-stop product [via Australia]."

First class return tickets on existing services across the Tasman are around $2700.