The Aviation News Blog

The good news about the A380 is that the aircraft has come through its flight test programme relatively unscathed and is expected to gain European certification by mid-December, as I report in the latest issue of Flight International.

Talking to the flight test team last week, the disappointment they feel soon became clear. Their successes have been largely overshadowed by the industrial ramp-up problems that have beset the A380. Service-entry is now set for October 2007, around two years later than originally planned.

Airbus is coming under increasing pressure to gather some data that will allay fears that aircraft trailing its ultra-large airliner on runway approaches will have to fly much further behind than they do for 747s today.

During my visit to Toulouse last week, the A380 flight test team explained that they plan to carry out more tests to try and persuade the International Civil Aviation Organisation to relax its recommended separations for the A380, which have now been adopted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

Wake vortex tests at cruising altitude involved flying an A380 and a Boeing 747 leased from Lufthansa side by side (see picture below), while the pilots of a smaller A318 flew their aircraft into the vortices to assess their strength.

Now British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has raised the stakes further, by suggesting that unless A380 separations are reduced, the introduction of the double-deck airliner could actually reduce the capacity of London's congested Heathrow airport. You will be able to read more about's Walsh's comments in next week's issue of Flight International.

My first chance to fly on the A380 came on 25th March when I was offered a seat on the route-proving flight to Washington DC. Check-in and boarding went smoothly (as you'd expect with any Lufthansa-operated flight) although the ground staff were no doubt trying that little bit harder to make sure everything went off without a hitch.

I got seat 35B - almost at the back of the economy section on the main deck, which was a bit of a disappointment as I would have preferred to be upstairs for the novelty value. There was plenty of room for everyone to stow their hand baggage, despite 474 of the 519 passenger seats on board being occupied.

A member of ground staff jubilantly explained over the public address system shortly before pushback that the 1h 35min turnaround time target had been achieved for the first time during the route-proving campaign.

However, at our scheduled pushback time of 18:00, it was clear that there was some kind of engine-related issue as technicians crowded around the number four engine.