Recently in A380 Category

If you think the British Airways Airbus A380 looks resplendent in its new livery, you probably ought to thank, at least in part, the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher openly disapproved of BA's bold decision to abandon its Union flag colours in favour of a multitude of ethnic designs intended to reflect its global reach - a controversial marketing ploy spearheaded by then-chief Bob Ayling.

When she encountered the models of a BA Boeing 747-400 and an Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde during the 1997 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher pronounced her verdict.

"Absolutely terrible," she said, in front of the cameras, and - in a moment that has passed into legend - retrieved a paper tissue from her handbag to cover the 747's fin. Concorde, carrying a stylised version of the flag, was untouched.

Virgin Atlantic and BMI mischievously responded by incorporating the flag in their own colour schemes, while operational concerns emerged as to whether the diversity of BA fins might cause identification problems.

BA backtracked on the fin designs just two years into the scheme, declaring that it would cap the number of aircraft. When the repainted fleet reached triple figures, in 2001, the airline gave up completely, scrapping the tail art to bring back a "simpler identity" that would illustrate "consistency and unity" - and, of course, be less likely to suffer a "handbagging" from her ladyship.

If Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal has truly sold his VIP Airbus A380, ordered in late 2007, it won't come as a surprise to anyone paying close attention at last year's Farnborough air show.

Because Airbus's demonstrator aircraft, MSN4, arrived at the show with a subtle amendment to the customer list on its fuselage - a white space where the logo of Kingdom Holding, the prince's investment company, had previously been slapped.

Kingdom Holding didn't respond when Flightglobal inquired, a few weeks back, about the situation with its A380 - the Trent 900-powered MSN2 - but this story appears to confirm what had been suspected. The company, whose investments include the social network Twitter, doesn't seem to have mentioned the buyer or the reason for the sale, but presumably prince Alwaleed will have to slum it in his private 747-400 for the foreseeable.

Of course, if his royal highness has sold the real A380, perhaps he'll also consider putting his model version on eBay. Which he part-owns as well. So keep your eyes open.

Malaysia Airlines' shiny new Airbus A380 made its debut this morning at Heathrow's Terminal 4, after introduction on the carrier's flagship Kuala-Lumpur-London service.

The new 494 seater is operating one of the airline's two daily services between the cities on an initial three-times weekly frequency. The A380 will go daily from mid-August when the second aircraft arrives. This machine will be on display all next week at the Farnborough air show.

 

MAS has configured its A380s with a three-class layout, comprising eight first, 66 business and 420 economy seats.

The first-class cabin is in the traditional slot on the A380, in the forward main-deck area. Business is on the upper deck (pictured, above)., with the economy cabins split between the main and rear upper decks. All the cabins debut new on-board product offerings, including what MAS claims is the widest first-class seat in service (pictured, bottom).

Interestingly, economy passengers with children will be discouraged from booking the upper-deck seats until all the main-deck places are occupied. Apparently there is concern that noisy kids will disturb business-class passengers (children will, of course, be permitted to book seats in the business cabin).

The MAS group CEO AJ Yahya says that a total of four A380s will be delivered this year, with the final two arriving in 2013. Other early destinations earmarked for the aircraft include Sydney, Tokyo Narita and Beijing.

The MAS A380s, which will replace all nine of the airline's Boeing 747-400s by March next year, had originally been planned with a premium economy cabin on the upper deck. These were replaced with around two more rows of business seats, says Yahya. "We took premium economy out because we thought it would be easier for us to sell business class, and we think we can manage the yield better through business class," he says.

After a morning on the ground at drizzly LHR, MAS's new A380 left T4 fully loaded for its first London-KL service just after mid-day, operating flight MH003.

This time last year Europe awoke to images of a rather second-hand looking Qantas Airbus A380 on the runway at Singapore's Changi airport. The big jet, operating Flight QF32 from London to Sidney via Singapore on 4 November 2010 with 469 souls on board, had made an emergency landing back at Changi after suffering a dramatic uncontained failure of its No 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 900.

The A380's captain, Capt Richard Champion de Crespigny, described the effect of the engine explosion (caused by the failure of the intermediate pressure turbine (IPT) following an oil fire) to Flightglobal's David Learmount as follows: "The wing was cluster-bombed. The aircraft had phenomenal damage to all systems. But it didn't just recover, it performed brilliantly."

As David explains in his recent blog, while Airbus should be applauded for the fact that the A380 was able to land safely after such a destructive failure, the manufacturer has had to address the overbearing way in which the warning system responded to the problem.
Immediately following the engine failure, Capt de Crespigny and his crew (there were five pilots up front on that eventful day) faced an excessive number of ECAM alerts - more than 60.

Interestingly, the over-talkative nature of the A380's warning system came up as a criticism of the double-decker in Flight International's award-winning in-service report Judging A Giant, which was published two years ago.

In the report, Airbus's executive vice president programmes, Tom Williams, admitted that the A380 crews "have a feeling that the aircraft is talking to them too much - telling them things that are interesting but not really essential".

SIA's then senior vice president flight operations, Capt Gerard Yeap, told Flight International that with aircraft systems now able to provide such a raft of data "we have to be careful we don't have information overload - that we don't fall into the trap of wanting to know so much you end up not knowing anything".

 

Faced with exactly that situation, QF32's Capt de Crespigny says that he realised, that instead of dealing with the failures, his crew had to determine what was still working.

The collateral damage caused by the accident was huge. Rolls was widely criticised for the way it hunkered down in the wake of the accident and ensuing grounding of the Trent-powered A380 fleet. Indeed it was intriguing - and somewhat unusual - to see the way the airframer swivelled the media spotlight on to its engine supplier which ended up bearing the brunt of the media storm.

The engine problem has had a knock-on effect on A380 deliveries this year, due to the restricted supply of modified Trents. Meanwhile the damaged A380 (VH-OQA) remains in Changi undergoing extensive repairs after a three-digit ($ million) insurance pay-out. The latest estimate is that it will be ready to return to service early in 2012 with what amounts to be a new port wing installed.

But after reading the fir

sthand account of Capt de Crespigny, the industry should definitely be grateful that the "QF32" incident wasn't a far more serious event.

As Red Bull Racing Formula 1 racer Mark Webber prepares to repeat his feat of a year ago by winning this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, he's swapped his 200mph RB7 for a 600mph Airbus A380.

Australian Webber, a "Qantas Ambassador", is to study for his pilot's license and has hooked up with his national airline to help him achieve his dream. He took the opportunity to get up close and personal to one of the airline's 450-seat A380s at London Heathrow, where he was shown around the cockpit by a Qantas training captain.

Qantas is providing "mentoring support" with one of its training pilots and will give Webber some valuable time in a flight simulator. It will also recommend an approved pilot training organisation for his tuition.

Webber is of course no stranger to "low flying", having famously become airborne in a high-speed barrel-rolling accident at last year's European Grand Prix in Valencia after colliding with the back of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus (below). Here's hoping that Mark's next take-off is a less spectacular affair!

This year's Paris air show has seen an invasion by the big jets on an unprecedented scale, with almost 2,000 tonnes of Airbus and Boeing "jumbo" heavy metal on display.

 

The Le Bourget museum's long-serving Boeing 747-100 exhibit has been joined by two of its younger, but larger siblings, a 747-8F and 747-8I passenger variant. Also at the show is Korean Air's next Airbus A380, which has had to substitute in the flying display after the Airbus test hack was damaged in a ground incident.

 

Another impressive piece of hardware on display is the US Air Force's Lockheed C-5M Galaxy airlifter, which has been open at both ends to allow visitors to walk through its huge cargo bay.

 

The A380 weighs in at 560 tonnes, while the 747-8s have maximum take-off weights of 442 tonnes. The 747-100 is a relative lightweight at 333 tonnes.

After announcing the launch of the route in November, Air France's inaugural A380 flight to Washington, DC arrived at Dulles International Airport on 6 June. The A380 aircraft flying to Washington feature 516 seats - 9 first, 80 business, 38 premium economy, and 389 economy. Air France's original A380s were not equipped with the airline's premium economy product, Premium Voyageur, but the product is now being introduced to the fleet.

We've all been there. One misheard quote and suddenly your journalistic creativity runs riot while your common-sense filter is out on a tea-break. Even on a publication as venerable as The Times of India.

Can't say I was at the press conference, but a quick check of other Indian papers suggests minister Ashwani Kumar actually said those second- and third-tier cities would be served by a "70- to 100-seat" aircraft...

Korean Air might want to pick up a couple of tips from Emirates on the art of creating a polished Airbus A380 advertisement.

The Seoul-based airline, which took delivery of its first A380 in May, has its own promotional video showing the aircraft being put together in time-lapse footage.

 

But wait a second...

Korean Air's A380s are powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 engines; in fact, the handover ceremony in Toulouse included a speech by Engine Alliance president Mary Ellen Jones, who said she was "delighted" that the airline would be the first Asian carrier to use the powerplant.

So what's being bolted onto the wing of that A380 about seven seconds into the Korean Air video? The orange engine cover clearly says, er, Trent 900...

Emirates might already have 90 Airbus A380s on order but it built a 91^st - or at least gave a computer-enhanced impression that it had - on a film set in South Africa, to promote the economic benefits of the Dubai-based carrier's fleet programme.

In a 30-second advertisement actor Maxim Deluc, playing a flight attendant, is shown wheeling a drinks trolley down the aisle while the A380 is put together around him.

Shooting the commercial involved constructing a full-scale fuselage barrel of the A380, on which to film the basic nose-to-tail walk, while the engines, detailed internal fittings and background were filled in afterwards with computer-generated jiggery-pokery:

Emirates is using the advertisement to emphasise the "economic significance" of its commitment to the A380 which, it says, supports creation of 200,000 direct and indirect jobs. It adds that 72% of the jobs are in France, Germany, the UK and Spain - hence the European flavour of the advert, which shows the A380 being assembled to an accompanying refrain from Strauss' Blue Danube waltz.

This video shows how the advertisement was put together, which also features a few facts about the aircraft's manufacture you might not have previously appreciated: "Six continents contribute to a single A380," it says. "Everywhere but Antarctica. Sorry, penguins."