Etihad Airways is competing with Emirates and Qatar Airways for the lucrative high-end traveler.

Etihad may be winning.

The Abu Dhabi-based airline has introduced a three-room ultra-class ticket they call The Residence.

It is available on their A380 flights to London, beginning Saturday, and can be had for …

No need for a spoiler alert. The headline says it.

For $20,000.

Apparently one-way.

For a seven-hour flight.

I didn’t grow up during the Depression, but doesn’t laying out that kind of money for your own “boutique hotel suite in the sky” seem more than a bit … extravagant?

Could not the buyer of Ticket 1 … have “roughed” it in first class for maybe $10,000 — and given the other $10,000 to charity? To the next guy who carries his bags?

In The National story about the passenger, he is described as an “airline enthusiast”. (More of us would be, if we flew first class — or better.) He lives in Miami and runs a cosmetics business.

Turns out, appealing to the snob in people with money is a winning strategy. More than a month ago, Etihad announced it had sold The Residence for the first 10 days.

(And is it possible to get $20,000 in service in seven hours? How much truffles and caviar can you eat? Can the airline promise no turbulence? Are you an idiot if you lose any time to sleeping in the double bed?)

The new ultra tickets are a result of the advent of the A380 super jumbo (Etihad is buying 10, and one will go to New York, eventually) and the Boeing 787, big planes with extra space to spend on those who want the “private plane experience” on a commercial flight. Especially the double-deck A380.

Check the photo gallery, for a sense of what it looks like.

And if you are interested in hearing from the guys who designed it, The National has you covered there, too, with this Q&A with the three of them.

Goodness knows, I’m not great defender of the proletariat, but the expression “obscene amounts of money” keeps rattling around inside my head.

Passenger Zero sounds like he plans to keep the staff hopping. “I have expectations,” he said. “My only wish is the flight was longer.”