Here is the plan. Drop the kids with the sitter and put the dog in the kennel. Stop at the bar for a couple of beers, then work them off in the gym. Shave, shower and meet the wife at her health spa. Tag along while she shops. Have a gourmet dinner, then light up a Cuban cigar and sip cognac at a small piano bar. Log 8 hours in the sack, eat a leisurely breakfast and collect the kids and Rover. Then move your seat to the full upright position, because this hasn't been a getaway weekend. You've flown from New York to Sydney aboard the Airbus A380, the world's first flying hotel.

This is no paper airplane. Flying hotels will begin checking in their first passengers in about five years. In mid-December, Airbus Industrie, the multinational European aircraft builder, announced it would start production of a new class of airliner, the superjumbo. The first, the A380, will fly off an assembly line in France in the fall of 2004, and customers will begin taking delivery in the winter of 2006. The first orders are for 555-passenger models. The largest jumbo jet currently in service is the 413-seat Boeing 747-400. It is a striking increase in the number of seats. But what is most impressive about the A380 is all the empty space.