IT'S nothing short of a rock-star welcome for the arrival of Singapore Airlines' spanking new baby, the A380, in October last year.

Significantly, it delivered the carrier a marketing coup - with local and international media falling head over heels to come up with rapturous epithets to describe the world's biggest plane, says a report in Marketing, a trade magazine based here.

Hailed as a national event, the delivery was the start of a mega-watt coverage detailing the birth of Airbus' A380 and featuring awe-inspiring shots of the fit-out interiors.

Special attention was given to the section of the plane most passengers would never see - the first-class sleeper cabins.

For a plane long derided as a white elephant and an icon of European industrial hubris, it is difficult to get anyone to say anything bad about theA380.

From the marketing perspective, aviation experts say that SIA's 10-month A380 monopoly gives the airline a killer edge, showcasing it as innovative, modern and luxurious.

SIA pulled out all the stops to cast the first commercial service of the A380 on Oct 25 as the greatest day for aviation since the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903. SIA's focus was not on the dry meat of slots and operating efficiencies, but on high glamour in the sky - and the world was watching.

It maximised PR coverage of the receipt of the jet in Toulouse, France; its arrival in Singapore, where it was met by VIPs including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong; its first flight; and its arrival in Sydney.

An SIA spokesman reckons that about 300 to 400 journalists were involved in the three locations, representing the elite of the world's print and TV media.

At the launch event, one VIP toldMr Huang Cheng Eng, executive vice president of marketing and regions for SIA, that seeing the A380 in SIA livery made him feel like standing up and singing Majulah Singapore.