The Incredible Story Of Prince Alwaleed’s Flying Palace

In October 2007 Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal decided to buy an Airbus double-decker A380 plane. This is the world’s largest passenger plane and can hold between 525 to 800 people. The prince had plans to turn this plane into a flying palace complete with Turkish baths and parking for two Rolls Royce cars.

There has been no shortage of rumors about the plane since 2007. There were rumors that the prince has paid $485 million to buy the plane and that the plane will be delivered in 2013 after all the internal fittings were done. But various sources have different stories regarding the plane.

One source said the prince actually booked a second hand version of the plane which Airbus agreed to rebuild with new engines and new systems. According to another source, Prince Alwaleed negotiated and brought the price of the plane down to $130 million as compared to the list price of A380 which is more than $300 million.

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The Prince already owns a fully furnished Boeing 747 and when asked why he wanted another plane as big as an A380, he said that he wanted to sell it to someone else and make some money.

By late 2007, Prince Alwaleed’s fortunes took a turn for the worse as Citigroup shares began to devalue. Alwaleed instructed his employees to find a new buyer for the plane. He however turned down an offer of $268 million from Chartwell Aviation, a U.K. aircraft leasing company. As of 2010, the prince was negotiating with the Saudi king Abdullah as a prospective buyer.

In June 2011, Airbus and Alwaleed entered into an agreement that made Saudi Ministry of Finance, the new buyer of the plane. However, in 2012, the FO of Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding insisted that the plane still belonged to Alwaleed and hasn’t been sold.

Finally in 2013, it was confirmed by Shadi Sanbar, the CFO of Kingdom Holding that the A380 was delivered in 2012 and had been sold, though no details about the buyer or the sales price were given out. But a knowledgeable source says the plane still remains at an Airbus property in Toulouse,France and has no interior decoration.