Sydney Airport to welcome A380's arrival

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Yada Yada

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theage.com.au said:
Sydney Airport to welcome A380's arrival
June 6, 2006 - 6:49PM

Sydney Airport has welcomed Singapore Airlines' decision to make it the world's first destination for a scheduled service of the Airbus new generation superjumbo.

Sydney Airport corporate affairs manager Rod Gilmour said that it will be a red letter day for the airport when the double-decker A380 touches down in Sydney after its maiden commercial flight in December.

"This is one of the major global aviation events for decades," he said

More...
The article also says "The airline decided that Singapore to Sydney would be the first route on which it will fly, rather than London to Singapore because of the shorter distance and lower crew requirements."

Perhaps. I wonder if they also decided upon Sydney for competitive reasons too? It will be great publicity to land the first A380 commercial flight here before Qantas begins any services with this aircraft.
 
Perhaps we'll see a further reduction of fares to SIN
-- compare the price of a return J to SIN, with a return J to HKG!
 
Nice little marketing ploy from SQ.

I think there are both political and commercial reasons to fly to Australia with the 380.

Now, when will Qantas start selling tix for their first 380 flight? May be interested in hopping on it if the price is right...
 
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The main driver behind their plan to use SIN-SYD-SIN as the initial operation is timing of schedules. When they start operations with a single aircraft, they can operate a daily service to SYD. SIN-SYD and SYD-SIN are around 8 hour flights, leaving sufficient time for turn-arounds at each end. SIN-LHR-SIN cannot be operated as a daily service by a single aircraft due to the longer flight times (around 13 hours).

The daily operation is desirable for a few reasons, one being crew training. They can have 2 crews operating each daily cycle and hence more crew gaining experience that would be possible operating the 13 hour flights to London.

Once they have a few more aircraft in the fleet, they can operate a daily schedule to London.
 
If I'm not mistaken, SQ will take delivery on 2 A380s before year's end. That is just short of the amount required to operate a daily SIN-LHR-SIN 380 service.

First 2 will be used on short intra-Asia hops and of course SYD.

I remember reading that the first SQ A380 would operate [FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=ARIAL, Helvetica, Geneva][FONT=Verdana,Helvetica,Arial][SIZE=-1][FONT=ARIAL,]SQ222 SIN-SYD

Regards
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Just checked the schedules on singaporeair.com and it still shows 747 in December/January :(

Probably wishful thinking that they would update the website to A380 now... but you think it is highly likely to be 221/222 and 231/232?

Should I book my ticket now and take a gamble that it will be the A380 or wait?
 
Given all the delays so far, SQ wont put A380 into the schedule until they're very certain of the dates they can use it (after training runs etc).

If you specially want to be on A380 then either wait until the flights are announced (note there is a risk they'll change - eg the A345 ultralonghauls start changed about 3 times), or get a flexible ticket on best guess of flights and change later (assuming there will still be availability in the right fare classes). If SQ introduces new fare classes (unlikely but possible) specially for A380 then you may have a change fee or surcharge to change.

Me - I'm waiting, but I know someone else who hopes to be on the inaugural flights who has already gotten a full fare ticket so they can be sure of being able to swap to the right flight.
 
There are a bunch of new articles about the A380 on the news.com.au website's Aviation section.

Here is an interesting excerpt from one of them:
news.com.au said:
Airbus has now flown five A380s, and Singapore Airline's first plane is in Hamburg getting its cabin fitted. Qantas, Singapore and Emirates are among the airlines to have ordered the big planes and Airbus says many start-up airlines are planning three-class configurations with 500 or fewer seats, well below Airbus's 555-seat optimum set-up.

Airlines are not revealing details of what they plan to do with the extra floor space on the plane - it has up to 50 per cent more floor space than a Boeing 747-400 - but a mock-up at Airbus's Toulouse headquarters uses parts already in production and suggests airlines are planning big increases in comfort.

By last Friday, A380s had logged 1437.5 hours in the air on 415 flights as it moves closer to certification. Officials say the flight test program is on track and they do not envisage any delays beyond the six months already announced.

Launch customer Singapore Airlines expects to receive its first plane in November before launching the first A380 scheduled service to Sydney in December.

"At this time, the delivery schedule is the one we're committed to and the one we're sticking to," Burger says.

Derrick Loh, a Singapore Airlines engineer and inspector based in Toulouse, agrees with the manufacturer's assessment. "It's proceeding as planned," says Loh, who says there have been minor problems, but nothing major recently.

Tests so far have largely met expectations and even produced a number of pleasant surprises -- such as a lower than expected approach speed and good handling characteristics with virtually no buffet, even at the edge of the aerodynamic envelope.

In the last year, engineers have probed the aircraft's aerodynamics, its ability to land in wet weather, what loads its landing gear can take, how well it can be evacuated and how it withstands weather extremes.

It has successfully negotiated several airports and proved it can dock at terminals and negotiate taxiways. It is easily serviced by both aerobridges and vehicles.

Steve Creedy travelled to Toulouse courtesy of Singapore Airlines and Airbus

Full Story here...
 
Just sitting in Marquette MI (MQT) listening to the ABC news radio on the internet.

there was a report that the A380 is going to be at least another 7-8 months late.

The airport runway here is something else. it's 10,000 feet long and is on a decommissioned airforce base that used to house nuclear weapons and nuclear bombers ...
 
bigjobs said:
there was a report that the A380 is going to be at least another 7-8 months late.

more delays - what a surprise - said to be affecting all deliveries until 2009 at least

compensation for late delivery must be costing Airbus a packet
 
bigjobs said:
there was a report that the A380 is going to be at least another 7-8 months late.
Was there any mention of the reason? Is this a new delay or reporting the old news about delays from the original planned delivery schedule?

Certainly Airbus has been implying that the flight testing is going well and the fist of the SQ b*sses is supposed to be having its cabin installed now.
 
apparently they're having difficulties scaling up production - and yes this is further delays not re-reporting the already known delays
 
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NM said:
Was there any mention of the reason? Is this a new delay or reporting the old news about delays from the original planned delivery schedule?

Certainly Airbus has been implying that the flight testing is going well and the fist of the SQ b*sses is supposed to be having its cabin installed now.

I am pretty sure it was a new report about delays on top of those already made public.
 
Published in Crikey.com.au today

Is Qantas backing a loser with A380?

By Glenn Dyer

Qantas's share price is low at the moment. It finished at $3.17 in yesterday's rout and fell to as low at $3.13 last week, a 52 week low. Analysts have been blaming the high fuel prices for much of the investor unease, but there's been another concern: the giant Airbus 380 which was due to arrive next year.

Investors were becoming concerned that the giant passenger jet might arrive with fuel prices still high and travellers unwilling to fly: a scenario that would be a bit of a nightmare for the airline. Delivery is already expected to be six months late and now there's news from France that there could be a further six month delay as Airbus struggles to sort out production problems. Airbus says wiring problems have forced it to cut delivery targets to nine from an original target of 20-27 planes next year. That could cost Airbus $A1 billion a year in losses for each of the next three years.

Airbus says that the first A380 will be delivered to Singapore Airlines as planned later this year but the problems would see delivery shortfalls of five to nine aircraft in 2008 and five in 2009. The A380 has cost Airbus billions of dollars to develop and still hasn't made enough sales to guarantee its future, another worrying point for some big investors in Qantas who fear that the airline might be stuck with a very large, fuel-burning white elephant.

Airbus has 159 firm orders for the plane from 16 carriers, including Emirates, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic: 250 orders is considered to be enough to guarantee the future of the plane. It's a situation that will test the resolve of the Qantas board to continue with the A380 or bite the bullet, forgo the deposits paid and look for a smaller, more fuel efficient aircraft.
 
I know that Qantas' major concern is that these production delays could actually mean the A380's get to Singapore Airlines a whole year before QF get theirs.
 
Here is the report on the delay from the SMH.

smh.com.au said:
Super jumbo roll out stretched
Scott Rochfort
June 14, 2006 - 12:35PM

European aircraft maker Airbus has delayed its A380 super jumbo program another seven months, throwing the fleet plans of Qantas and 12 other airlines in disarray.

The French-based Airbus blamed the delay on the "definition, manufacturing and installation of electrical systems and resulting harnesses".

While Airbus said the A380's flight test program was still on schedule, it said the production glitches would result in only nine of the jets being delivered in 2007. This is despite 15 of the aircraft already assembled on the Airbus factory floor in Toulouse.

<snip>

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon told a transport forum in Canberra he was only informed of the delay last night.

Mr Dixon declined to say how the latest A380 delay would impact the national carrier, which has ordered 12 of the aircraft.

But when Airbus announced a year ago the delivery of Qantas's first A380 would be pushed back six months to April 2007, Mr Dixon warned another delay could cause serious problems.

Qantas has already been forced to delay the planned retirement of some of its ageing 747s due to the previous A380 delay. The latest could cause serious headaches at the national carrier.

More...
 
I can't see any QF flights loaded into the booking system with A380 as aircraft.

Delivery in April??
 
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