An extra 10-million passengers a year will be able to pass through London’s Heathrow airport thanks to a new generation of ”super-jumbos”.
The Airbus A380 is in production at sites across Europe and is due to take off in three years.
British airport operator BAA says that it expected the plane to account for up to 60 000 take-offs and landings a year by 2016. This would amount to one in eight flights at Heathrow, the busiest international airport in the world.
The A380 has been billed as the most significant development in aviation since the jumbo jet and Concorde. Airbus describes the double-decker plane as a potential ”cruiseliner in the sky”, and claims it will make half the noise of a standard jumbo.
The plane’s wings, which span 80m, are being manufactured at Broughton in Wales. The super-jumbo’s parts are so big that Airbus has been making dummy-runs using vast, mock-up rigs to test routes to its base in Toulouse.
”We’re on track to go into service in 2006,” said Chris Spenhouse, vice-president of the A380 project. The first customer will be Singapore Airlines, followed by Virgin Atlantic. Richard Branson, chairperson of Virgin, said he planned to introduce self-service cafés on board.
A standard version of the super-jumbo will cost $270-million and, with 550 seats, will be 35% bigger than a Boeing 747.
However, Airbus said some Japanese airlines planned to fill the planes with economy-class seats, fitting 800 passengers on board. A proposed ”stretched” version would accommodate 900 seats.
Airports around the world are rebuilding facilities to make way for the super-jumbo, with BAA investing £450-million in its preparations.
The new planes will be more fuel-efficient than a Volkswagen Lupo, according to Airbus executives. It will take at least an hour- and-a-half to load and unload passengers. — Â