Airbus hands over its 30th A380
Airbus Industrie’s thirtieth A380 was delivered today to Emirates Airline, one of the launch customers of the big Airbus double-decker. This is the tenth A380 Emirates has received out of the Dubai carrier’s total firm order for 58 aircraft.
This aircraft and Lufthansa’s recently delivered first A380 will be on display at the ILA Berlin Air Show which is taking place from June 8th to 13th, and from June 11th an Airbus flight test A380 will be on static and flying display.
Emirates’ A380 delivery is the 7th so far in 2010, with three now delivered to Emirates, two to Air France, one to Lufthansa and one to Qantas. Airbus is on track to deliver a total of at least 20 A380s in 2010.
Today five major airlines, Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airline, Qantas, Air France and Lufthansa, operate 30 A380s on 20 routes linking 18 major international destinations. Together they have carried nearly five and a half million passengers on 15,000 revenue flights and have clocked up almost 140,000 revenue flight hours.
With a 590 tonne maximum takeoff weight, the A380 is structured to make it capable of an increase to 650t if larger variants are developed. Standard seating is for 555 passengers on two decks in a three class arrangement. However Qantas A380s are fitted with 523 seats in three classes.
Airbus says: “These A380 flights have saved 640,000t of CO2 emissions by replacing journeys that would otherwise have been made with less fuel-efficient large aircraft. The A380 has the lowest fuel burn of any wide body aircraft, needing less than three litres of fuel per passenger per 100km.
“The A380 is also a proven profit generator. Delivering an impressive double-digit percentage reduction in cash operating costs, it allows airlines either to increase the number of seats offered at little or no extra cost, or keep the same capacity at a much lower total cost. This is one of the reasons why seven of the 17 A380 customers have already placed repeat orders and over half the world’s top international carriers have ordered it.”
Airbus has now received 202 firm orders for the A380 from 17 customers.
