British Airways Open ‘Man vs Plane’ Challenge Against New A380

British Airways, leading global airline, has thrown open a challenge to anyone who thinks they can win a race against its newly acquired Airbus A380.

The challenge comes after South African rugby legend, Bryan Habana’s sprint against the aircraft grabbed global attention to become one of the top 10 most-watched YouTube videos of 2013.

Anyone, anywhere in the world can enter the #Man vs Plane challenge. Five winners will be selected to fly to Durban in February and get the chance to pit their physical prowess against British Airways’ largest and most modern aircraft.

The runner with the quickest time will win two return tickets in Club World (business class) on one of British Airways’ A380 services.

Johannesburg to London is just the third of these services to be announced. The other two are London/ Los Angeles and London/ Hong Kong.

“Last year I accepted the challenge to race the A380 and won, but it wasn’t easy,” says Bryan Habana, the Springbok winger and top try scorer. “To take this on you will have to be physically fit and have plenty of strength, stamina and speed.”

To see Bryan’s insights on racing the A380 see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCufB8As64k and to accept the challenge, visit www.ba.com/ManVsPlane between Monday 13 and Monday 20 January and meet the entry requirements.

The speediest challenger won’t be the only winner on the day. When the Man vs Plane clip reaches two million views, which it’s currently just short of, British Airways will donate two Club World tickets worth R60 000 to FoodBank.

Habana is a patron of FoodBank South Africa, which is leading a co-ordinated effort to establish food banks around the country in communities with the highest concentrations of hungry or malnourished people. It rescues and procures food and essential groceries centrally and distributes these to depots from where its agencies are able to get it to people in need.

Kola Olayinka, British Airways’ Regional commercial manager for West Africa, said the runaway success of the video prompted the airline to offer the donation.

“We were slightly taken by surprise by how well the video has done, so we thought we’d ask Bryan if we could make a gesture to acknowledge the huge following it had garnered. We’re thrilled that what started out as a bit of fun has enabled us to help and organisation doing such important work,” he said.

British Airways will start A380 services between London and Johannesburg from 12 February. Initially it will operate three flights a week, increasing to six weekly services by March.