The first Airbus A380 customer aircraft - manufacturer’s serial number 003 for Singapore Airlines (SIA) - is due to be positioned to the manufacturer’s Finkenwerder plant near Hamburg soon to undergo cabin furnishing and painting.
The aircraft (pictured below in Toulouse last week) will complete at least one test flight at Toulouse and will then be ferried to Finkenwerder where it will enter the cabin furnishing facility for its interior installation. It will also be painted in full SIA colours (the fin and rudder is painted prior to final assembly).
Once the customisation is completed, MSN003 will be positioned back to Airbus’s Toulouse Blagnac plant for customer acceptance flights and delivery later this year.
Airbus has completed the installation of the first cabin on A380 test aircraft MSN002, which will be used in the near future for the so called “early long flights” from Toulouse with Airbus employees on board. Interior installation on the second cabin test aircraft – MSN007 – is now underway ahead of it undertaking the route-proving programme in the third quarter.
Source: Flight International
