Posted on 01/18/2005 7:45:22 AM PST by Happy2BMe
Airbus unveiled the world's biggest passenger jet in a glitzy ceremony in which the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Spain hailed Europe's victory over the United States as the new king of the commercial skies.
The huge A380 superjumbo, which can carry up to 840 people on its two full decks, supersedes the ageing 747 by US rival Boeing as the biggest civilian aircraft ever made.
When it is put into service early next year, it will become the flagship of many airline fleets and offer unprecedented amenities on long-haul services, including, in some cases, gyms, bedrooms and bars.
For the countries which backed the 10.7-billion-euro (14-billion-dollar) development cost, the plane stood as a prominent symbol of European cooperation.
"Good old Europe has made this possible," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told a packed hall in Airbus's headquarters in Toulouse, southwest France.
That was a barely-veiled barb recalling the US dismissal of France, Germany and other EU states in 2003 as "Old Europe" because of their opposition to the war on Iraq.
Noel Forgeard, the French head of Airbus, made similar hints in his presentation of the A380 during a spectacle featuring computer graphics, atmospheric theme music and swirling colours.
"The European states -- so easily accused of weakness -- backed this fantastic challenge 35 years ago and have believed in the A380," he said.
The hubris on display was reinforced by recent figures showing that, for the second year running, Airbus has outsold Boeing and now holds some 57 percent of the world market for passenger aircraft.
The company, a majority owned subsidiary of the listed European Aerospace and Defence Company (with 20 percent in the hands of Britain's BAE Systems), forecasts that the A380 will extend that lead.
Thirteen airlines have already placed firm orders for 139 of the planes. Airbus calculates that by 2008 it will reach the break-even point of 250 A380s sold, and from that point it will turn out 35 of the aircraft per year to rising profits.
The catalogue price of the huge machine -- boasting a wingspan of 80 metres (262 feet), overall length of 73 metres (239 feet), height of 24 metres (79 feet) and maximum take-off weight of 560 tonnes -- is between 263 and 286 million dollars, though discounts are frequently applied.
French President Jacques Chirac called the project a "big success" and said: "We can, and we must, go further on this path of European construction so essential for growth and employment."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the plane was "the culmination of many years of hard work" and congratulated the workers across Europe who made it happen.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Europe was "unstoppable" when it pooled its efforts.
The plane, Zapatero said, "has turned this historic moment into a moment in which cooperation and globalisation are giving rise to more peace and justice."
The four EU leaders later lunched together, leaving industry VIPS to get close to the huge white plane sitting in its hangar.
Airline executives at the presentation were superlative in their praise, even though the A380 has yet to undergo test flights scheduled for March or April.
Richard Branson, the head of Britain's Virgin Atlantic, said his airline would pamper passengers on the six A380s ordered by including gyms, beauty parlours, bars -- and even casinos and double beds.
The last two features meant "you'll have at least two ways to get lucky on our flights," Branson joked.
The biggest buyer of the new plane is the Emirates airline, which has ordered 43. "The A380 will be the future of air travel," its chairman, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, said.
Airbus's success with the A380 is raising hackles at Boeing, which has won relatively little interest in its own new offering, a long-range mid-size plane called the 7E7 Dreamliner.
A bruising dispute over state subsidies between Boeing and Airbus is currently the subject of tense negotiations which, if they fail at the end of a three-month deadline, will blow up into a full-blown arbitration case at the World Trade Organisation.
So you advocate socialism to make us competitive? Look what it did to eastern Europe.
Lead America? They built a plane that has never flown and does not fly.
They needed four (4) different countries to be able to get it off the drawing board!!!
How many techs in this air craft is built or invented in the U.S???
How big will the crew be, and how will the meals be served to the middle of the rows???
Can´t we just all get along?
Sure we can, but your leaders kind of said something else after the plane was introduced!!!
Alot of mean spirited diatribe being posted here. Everyone should calm down and wait for the results of the flight test program.
Crew currently being recruited from Fenway, Shea and Wrigley.
"Yo!! Heads up!! Middle row!! Packet of stink cheese, box of blood pudding! Bag of tree fungus!! Comin' atcha!!"
Sure. A flying mall, complete with food court. A just revenge!
How about somewhere down the line you read that this 800 passenger airbus will be touting how it has installed systems for deflecting surface to air missiles? That's my guess, plus the first thing that came to my mind (yours too?) is that this is a made to order terrorist target
329 posts, and no-one has yet mentioned the Bristol Brabazon, of which this is uncannily reminiscent. At the time (1949) the largest airliner ever built, and still the largest piston-engined airliner ever: but low (luxury)capacity and slow just as the market was about to move in the other direction on both counts. Even built in the same factory (Filton) which is now contributing to Airbus. A beautiful plane, though...I saw the prototype flying when I was a small kid.
By terrorist target the only image in my mind was a surface to air missile being fired at this flying EUropean elephant
Thge fact remains, Boeing decided to bank on the 7E7 instead of building Super Jumbos.
"lower cost per passenger-mile (economy of scale of more passengers"
That depends on how full the plane is. For instance, at 40% it is a losing proposition.If the breakeven point is 50%, you need more passengers at a capacity of 800 than you do 250. Time will tell.
I have been on transatlantic flights with fewer than 10 peopleon board on a 747.
If I have to advocate something it is a mixed system. I believe in the theory of Deng’s cat. (see my tagline).
Socialism in Easter Europe was not all bad (and you cannot blame the relative poverty of Eastern Europe on it as poverty was much older). Many things imported from the socialism were implemented in US during the New Deal and many of them worked for good.
Government during the ENTIRE history did some good things and some bad, mostly good. I do not believe in anarchism or free market ideology. The first is not even possible to implement the second will be ruinuous and will end in opposite reaction.
HUB and spoke is as bad an idea there as it is here. Why would someone flying from say Cork Ireland want to fly to the nearest hub, waste time boarding this thing only to fly to Beijing and get on another transfer to get to his plant in Shanghi?
And will they do this if they have the option to fly from Cork to Shanghi direct. There may be a market now, in the old system, but that system is 20 years late in dying. It doesn't have another 20 years.
Thrust Specific Fuel Consuption...it drives everything.
Probably still didn't have enough leg room.
lol
>>Yeah, from what I'm gathering, the only viable market for jumbos is the cargo business.<<
That's my take on this as well. They ARE hub-centric, after all. This WILL be fun to watch play out. Nobody KNOWS how this will play out. It is always possible that large flights will catch on. But one thing is for sure, I wouldn't want to be at the arrival pick up area at Sea-tac when one of these babies shows up.
My wife and I already implement a nice trick whenever we pick each other up at the airport - we get picked up at the departure level.
We'd better not hear another word from Chirac & Friends about our not signing Kyoto.
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