Posted on 05/02/2005 6:48:03 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
According to sources in the company, an Indian airline has asked for a plane with an all-economy configuration, which means a carrying capacity of 850.
Airbus Industries may have lost to its American rival Boeing in the race to sell its aircraft to Air-India, but the European company is seriously pursuing private airlines in India, pitching the biggest passenger aircraft ever built, the A380.
Senior officials in Airbus Industrie told Deccan Herald that the company is in serious talks with at least one such carrier which may buy the super-jumbo sometime next year.
Refusing to disclose the name of the airline, Mr Nigel Harwood, Airbus Vice-President, Sales (India and South Asia), said: “There are several requests for the A380 worldwide and in India one domestic carrier has expressed interest in purchasing it. It will have an all-economy configuration, which means the aircraft will have 850 seats. It will fly in the domestic sector. We are also working with the Airports Authority of India to prepare Indian airports to receive A380s.”
Mr Harwood’s statement points to the likelihood that the new Indian buyer would be a budget airline, a carrier other than Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara. The budget airlines, apart from Air Deccan, which are likely to take off in the next year include Kingfisher Airlines, SpiceJet, Magic Air, Go Air, Air One and Yamuna Airlines. As of now, Deccan and Kingfisher, which have asked for Airbus aircraft, have not included A380 on their shopping list. SpiceJet has favoured an all-Boeing fleet.
The double-decker A380, which last week successfully completed its initial test flight at Toulouse, its manufacturing base in France, will start commercial flights from 2006 when Singapore Airlines receives the first of the $285-million aircraft. Airbus has 154 orders for the 560 ton plane from leading airlines like Lufthansa, Virgin and Air France; Emirates Air tops the list with an order for 43 aircraft.
Airports gear up
While airports around the world, including Heathrow in London, JFK in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Frankfurt, are upgrading to welcome the A380, Indian airports will have to gear up too.
Singapore Airlines is expected to fly A380 to either Mumbai or Delhi late next year, making it mandatory for AAI to upgrade these airports.
AAI Chairman K Ramalingam said in Chennai on Sunday that his organisation would take up work at the four international airports in the metropolitan cities to handle A380 jets.
The A380s need exclusive parking bays, strengthening of taxiing tracks and adequate space for the mighty 79.9 metre wing span. “AAI has received written requests from various foreign carriers, especially those having a large presence at Indian airports, such as Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airlines and Lufthansa,” Mr Ramalingam said.
Also, AAI must take care of what happens inside the terminal: check-in space, baggage handling and security to service up to 850 passengers. For international terminals it will also have to provide space and increase manpower at the customs and immigration counters.
It can be much worse than that. Some airports will have to stop the movements of all other aircraft on all the taxiways and runways when one of these things is moving on the airfield. In many cases parallel runways will have to be shut down. Of course this is so efficient.
[ Sorry, but a plane with 850 Indians on it would stink (literally) to high heaven. ]
Sorry, but a plane with 850 Frenchmen on it would stink (literally) to high heaven.
Stink is not the only thing you have to worry about.
What is going to happen when one those planes goes down with all 850 souls lost? Every time a plane crashes, they will refer to Airbus Flight XXX as the worst civil aviation disaster ever. The public relations effect will be a disastrous nightmare for Airbus.
I spent five years in the Air Foce and I hate to fly. There is no way I will even consider flying on a plane that large.
According to sources in the company, an Indian airline has asked for a plane with an all-economy configuration, which means a carrying capacity of 850.
Airbus Industries may have lost to its American rival Boeing in the race to sell its aircraft to Air-India, but the European company is seriously pursuing private airlines in India, pitching the biggest passenger aircraft ever built, the A380.
It's really too bad...that just means more people are going to die in each Airbust crash. =(
True, dat.
Hey, by the way, who actually won the French & Indian War?
Not to mention the time wasted going through TSA "security" sceenings. Geeesh Louise!!!!!
Now theres a disgusting thought..
Hopefully that won't happen very often. That was one of the arguments used against the 747 when it came out. One of the rebuttals is that with fewer planes flying around, it is easier for air traffic control to prevent midair collisions.
If it does as well as recent aircraft models, that may never happen. The 777 which has been in service since June of 1995 has never had a fatal incident. Neither have the A330, A340, or Next Generation 737s.
Only if it is flown into the Louvre or some other landmark in Paris. The worst civil aviation disaster in in history was Boeing 767-200 crash by AA flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Most of the people who died were in that tower. Many of the occupants of the South Tower started evacutating the building after they saw people in the North tower jump to their deaths, but before the second plane hit.
Exactly what a slaveship owner would count on. But 850 bags of peanuts may be more than anyone could manage.
You can on an ocean liner. Parked at a dock for two days, two hundred Tobys carrying aboard all manner of goods, food and household goods for the trip. I don't think this is what Airbus has in mind, tho.
good point.
FedEx is planning to buy 10 of the monsters, but doesn't have enough traffic on any lanes to support it. Maybe with a lot of growth, they could use a handful, but my guess is that it was done because
1) Fred Smith just loves airplanes and
2) wants to curry favor with the Euros.
The future is in the RJs and the Beyond-Regional-Mini-Jets.
That would be one hell of a fun party jet.
I doubt John Travolta has the dough for it (the rumor is he may buy a Convair 880 and fix it up).
The Saudi family has a nice duded up 747SP and a L1011 that are toys.
Seriously, I see a market for this capacity at a LOW cost. How better to get 850 more scabs to the US at a cheap price? The Indian Gvt will pay for it to get rid of them.
discovery channel did a speacial about that. Micro jets that would be about the price of a modest luxury car, about 45-60 k and be able to use regional executive airports. They would have such simplified and automated controls that they practically fly themselves.
Imagine what that would do to the superjumbos.
These capacities are going to be a reality and the norm as countries spread their poor to better countries.
Back in the day, I used to fly into Dehli on Pan Am One, which would arrive 20 minutes before Pan Am Two, coming around the other way. The two 747s would leave New York 20 minutes apart, One going East and Two going West. They would cross over in Dehli in the middle of the night.
So you had two 747s hit Pahlgam Airport within 20 minutes of each other, every day. To say it was mayhem is an considerable understatement. They never did fix the problem. They just had a slug of passengers arrive every day at midnight, and tried to get them out the door by 6 AM.
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