All Nippon Airways Co. on Friday resumed operations of its Airbus A380 superjumbo passenger jets on its Narita-Honolulu route, after regular flights were suspended for more than two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the three double-decker giant planes the company owns took off in the evening from Narita airport near Tokyo for the seven-and-half-hour trip to Hawaii.
The world's biggest passenger jet, which seats 520 passengers and features sea turtles on its fuselage, is known as the "Flying Honu," after the Hawaiian word for the marine creature.
"We've always wanted to go to Hawaii on Honu," said Mitsuhiro Tanaka, a 28-year-old from Matsuyama in western Japan, before boarding the airplane with his wife on their honeymoon. "We want to take a lot of pictures there."
ANA, a group company of ANA Holdings Inc., introduced the A380 in May 2019, but flights were suspended in March 2020 after the pandemic caused demand for international travel to slump.
