Now, a bit of context with this picture: My family would always complain about how arduous long-distance travel between North America and Asia was, and I had just gotten back from a trip to the People's Republic of China around that time. (It was overall an enjoyable trip but the flight back was a complete shambolic disaster thanks to Air China)

I had started doing research on how to make travel more comfortable and tolerable and I had discovered that Singapore Airlines (an airline I had been hoping for a while to fly at the time) had been operating a nonstop service between Newark and Singapore and was the longest nonstop flight at the time (about 18 hours each way). It used a special airplane which you see in this picture here, an Airbus A340-500, and used a very special seating configuration of 100 business class seats to not only reduce weight but also because it was the only way to make the flight profitable.

There are a few reasons this flight and plane fascinated me: There's something about overcoming inherent barriers and making bizarre and weird adjustments to make cool things happen that fascinates me. Also, this plane is not subject to a certain restriction called ETOPS because it has 4 engines for redundancy so it can theoretically fly wherever it can. And: the flight doesn't stop for anything. Not even if someone dies onboard (they have a closet to store the corpse if it does happen). Freedom, not stopping for anything, luxury, problem solving- central themes to what I had been pursuing and admired back in the day and core themes to Euro.

Flight's landing: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61101434/

A great piece by  Chibi-Marrow