Recently in A380 Category

Singapore Airlines is using "social marketing" to drum up passenger excitement ahead of its first Airbus A380 flight from London on 18 March.

SIA has sent passengers an email inviting them to submit "creative expressions" of the A380 next to a London landmark. Squint hard at the picture to the left and you'll see an A380 in the top left corner. Every week, the submission with the highest number of votes gets the honour of being featured on the main page of the carrier's online A380 "gallery".

Passengers are also invited to submit written articles describing their own experiences on the A380. Examples of previous submissions can be seen here.

This is a good example of "user-generated content", something us journalists are only too familiar with as our profession evolves and changes to take into account the potential to reach and engage with readers in new ways through the web.

Airlines are obviously beginning to incorporate this technique into their marketing strategies, and it will be interesting to see who else jumps on this bandwagon and what methods they will adopt to communicate their message to the masses.

The behemoth Airbus A380 has touched down on German soil for the first time, landing at Munich Airport yesterday before departing back to its Toulouse base 5 hours later.

Michael Kerkloh, chief executive at Munich Airport, was naturally effusive: "This is a great day for Munich Airport. We are proud to be hosting a visit by the world's most advanced and largest passenger aircraft."

Airbus today completed the first media flight on the A380 without any major hitches but the event was not totally blunder free.

Several oxygen masks accidentally became deployed at takeoff and landing, capturing the attention of television crews including CNN. Airbus technicians quickly responded by re-installing the oxygen masks (see picture), explaining the masks had been tested on the previous flight.

Journalists descended on Toulouse today as Airbus for the first time took the wraps off an A380 with a completed cabin.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has becoming one of the first Asian carriers to join the growing debate over the aviation industry's impact on the environment.

At SIA's annual parliamentary reception at the House of Commons in London yesterday, general manager of UK and Ireland Marvin Tan told politicians, reporters and industry partners that SIA advocates "an integrated approach to managing the industry's impact on the environment".

"We need to do our bit, but we must also keep the scope of the problem in perspective," Tan says, pointing out the aviation industry's contribution to carbon emissions is only about 2% of the world's total.

"We have a very strong compensation clause with a limited excusable delay beyond which Airbus will have to give me loads of money and the aircraft as a gift," said Akbar Al Baker (centre), with only a hint of pathos, speaking at his annual press conference at London's World Travel Market show yesterday about discussions between his airline and Airbus about A380 deliveries.

Over the past few weeks, all the customers of the Airbus A380 have been nagged by journalists over how much the manufacturer is giving airlines for delays to their deliveries. "As far as compensation is concerned we have a very rigid mechanism in our purchase agreement which I cannot disclose," said the head of Qatar Airways.

A press conference held by Al Baker is always an entertaining affair, and his appearance at WTM did not disappoint. Although his central message was to announce his carrier is getting back on its ambitious growth track with a whole load of new route launches next year, after just one (Hong Kong) this year, the hour-long discussion ranged over topics as diverse as the Airbus A380, the environment, passenger service, Australian routes, in-flight catering monopolies, female pilots, Live TV and financial results.

Among the highlights was the clearest indication yet about when Qatar will take its first of the Airbus superjumbos. The airline had already delayed its first delivery from 2007 to 2009 because of delays to the construction of the New Doha International Airport, said Al Baker. Already "disappointed" with a further delay, Qatar now knows it will receive its first A380 in late 2010 and the second in early 2011. Two options will follow a year later if exercised.

A true salesman always tries to make something positive come out of adversity. The Airbus team that has managed to not only ensure that one of its launch A380 customers - Australia's Qantas Airways - is staying with the programme, but is in fact ordering more of the superjumbos, can be forgiven for popping the champagne all this week.

OK, Qantas has negotiated what it calls an "attractive" package in buying eight more A380s to add to its original order for 12. Attractive is probably Aussie code for "bloody amazing".

For Qantas, the deal makes sense. It has negotiated a deal that will most likely feature spectacular financial breaks on its existing and new A380s, and perhaps more critically a range of attractive delivery slots from 2008 up to 2015.

And we've not even mentioned the four A330s Qantas is taking to help fill in for the late delivery of the A380. These will not be free, even that would be too much for the tough-talking Qantas executive team to secure, but could be some of the cheapest widebodies ever sold.

Amid all the carnage at Airbus over the extra delays to the A380 there is another potentially serious fallout that cannot be overlooked: will A380 deliveries start just as the industry heads into its next downturn?

The original plan saw A380s being delivered this year and next. Such timing would not have coincided with the peaks of 2004 and 2005 as traffic growth rates soared, but A380s would have been soaking up today's decent volumes.

Now, Airbus has told its customers that the first A380 will be delivered in October 2007, with 13 being delivered in 2008 and 25 in 2009. Full production will be achieved in 2010 when 45 of the super jumbos will be delivered.

But will the market require all of that extra capacity at this time? As Airline Business has been warning, the industry could be on the cusp of a downturn. Yes, the normal economic cycle could be elongated, but there is little doubt that the industry is slowing.

A stretched cycle could see the bottom being reached in 2010/11. A more traditional cycle means the industry hitting the bottom in 2008/9. Whatever the future holds, the danger is that A380s will be delivered slap bang into an industry trough.

Qantas Airways today became the first Airbus A380 customer to disclose how much compensation it will receive from Airbus for mounting delivery delays, writes Airline Business deputy editor Brendan Sobie. If A$104 million ($79 million) in payments to Qantas for delays to its 12 A380s are any indication of what Airbus will have to pony up for the 15 airlines and one leasing company which have ordered 168 A380s, the European manufacturer could be facing total penalties of over $1 billion.

The delivery of nearly every A380 on order has been delayed by at least a half year. However, not all of the customers may be entitled to the $6.6 million per aircraft in penalties Qantas has negotiated. Qantas' first A380 has been delayed by one year, from late 2006 to late 2007. Only Emirates and Singapore Airlines (SIA) also face delays of one year; the delays to the customers which follow them in the programme are not as severe. And generally manufacturers are not required to pay significant penalties if aircraft are delivered only six months late or less.

How much exactly Airbus will have to pay in penalties is unclear because negotiations with most customers continue and both sides have so far been tight-lipped about these sensitive discussions. Some customers including Emirates, which is by far the largest of the A380 customers with 43 aircraft on order, are also not publicly traded so may not reveal how much Airbus will pay them even after negotiations conclude.
Some customers may also opt for discounts on additional aircraft rather than cash payments. For example Singapore Airlines, which is still planning to place the first A380 into service by year-end, placed an order last month for nine additional aircraft.
Qantas disclosed the A$104 figure in releasing its financials for the fiscal year ending 30 June. It says the funds are being recognised as liquidated damages from Airbus and will be paid over time until the delivery of its last A380.

In announcing the second major delay to A380 delivery schedule earlier this year, Airbus said it expected to deliver only one A380 in 2006, followed by only nine aircraft in 2007. Airbus was originally committed to delivering the first A380 to Emirates, Qantas and SIA in 2006 and was planning to deliver 20 aircraft in 2007.

Etihad Airways has become the second Middle East carrier after Emirates to welcome the A380 to its home base. An A380 test aircraft flew into Abu Dhabi for hot weather testing on the 24 July and Etihad used the occasion to show off the aircraft (see the pictures below).

The arid Gulf provides an ideal location for heat testing, which must be performed at outside temperatures over 38_C. The tests look at the performance of the engines, auxiliary power unit, air conditioning, hydraulic and electrical systems, both in the air and on the ground.

Etihad has placed an $8 billion order with Airbus for 24 aircraft, including four A380s. The A380's huge capacity - it can accommodate up to 555 guests in a standard three-zone configuration - has ensured abundant media attention. "The A380 is set to change the future of air travel," said Etihad Airways chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saif Al Nahyan.

After the visit to Abu Dhabi, the A380 will continue hot weather testing in Al Ain. These tests form part of the A380's overall EASA and FAA certification programme.