First Qantas A380 In Service By October

[Ben O]

http://www.news.com.au/business/stor...-14334,00.html

Qantas A380 in service by October

IT was up, up and away for the flying kangaroo's new super jet yesterday as Qantas Airlines' first Airbus A380 effortlessly climbed into the skies above the French city of Toulouse, en route to an interior fitout in Germany.

The double-decker A380, which has a wingspan almost as large as a football field, will be named Nancy Bird Walton after the sprightly 92-year-old aviatrix.

After an incident-free two-hour flight and a near perfect touchdown at Hamburg on the Elbe River in northern Germany, the latest version of the world's biggest airliner was rolled into a hangar for its cabin fitout.

With the seats, galleys and the entertainment system to be installed, the 560-tonne jetliner next moves into a paint hangar where its appearance will change from bare metal green to the red and white livery of our national carrier.

Two weeks later, A380-01 is scheduled to return to Toulouse, the French headquarters of Airbus, where Qantas pilots and engineers will begin acceptance trials before it leaves for Australia in August. By October it is expected to be flying from Melbourne to Los Angeles.

The jet can carry 850 passengers but Qantas is likely to reconfigure the plane to seat just 500 to give extra space.

Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti, who was in Hamburg with his A380 project team to inspect and approve the interior fitout, said the finished product exceeded expectations.
"And my expectations were pretty high," he said.

Airbus also has given Qantas a rock-solid guarantee it will deliver by December all three of the first batch of 20 A380s that have been ordered.

After that there will be a brief delay of several weeks which could affect the arrival date of the fourth aircraft. The Franco-German company says the review is needed to conduct further tests of the A380 assembly systems.

However engineers at Hamburg said that before beginning the process they wanted to deliver the first wave of aircraft which had suffered a two-year delay due to software problems.

[Philip Argy]

With A380-01 doing the MEL-LAX run, what routes will A380-02 and 03 operate? I assume the Pacific and Kangaroo routes, but does anyone have authoritative info?

[Ben O]

It takes around 2 aircraft to complete a daily MEL-LAX service.

So I would say the first 4 or so aircraft will be used for 1x daily MEL-LAX-MEL and 1x daily SYD-LAX-SYD service.

[Montague S]

according to these images the interior has been installed.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/gal...6020-2,00.html

that economy green is disgusting! the business class looks cheap and first class looks more like a new business class.

pardon my harshness but the fitout looks terrible.

[Ben O]

that economy green is disgusting!

I thought it was supposed to be RED! as per other pics and the updated B744 interiors......

[Montague S]

well its clearly green so maybe the red is for the economy plus section? there is some red in pictures 5 & 6, perhaps upper & lower deck have a mix of colours?

[Philip Argy]

Hmm - the fitout captions in the Herald Sun pics don't look right to me - I wonder if those pics are old and taken of a mock up cabin. If A380-01 has only just arrived in Hamburg for its fitout it's unlikely these photos are from that aircraft already fitted out but if they are I have to agree with others that it's a little disappointing.

[Montague S]

Originally Posted by Philip Argy

Hmm - the fitout captions in the Herald Sun pics don't look right to me - I wonder if those pics are old and taken of a mock up cabin. If A380-01 has only just arrived in Hamburg for its fitout it's unlikely these photos are from that aircraft already fitted out but if they are I have to agree with others that it's a little disappointing.

or is it a case of just getting the news now but it actually occurred a while back? would they have a full size A380 mock cabin? looks like a lot of seats for a mock up.

if its not the real deal then we know what to expect.

[Philip Argy]

Here's what Qantas says on its own website, although this must be a little while back as it was still assuming an August 2008 service commencement:
http://www.qantas.com.au/info/about/company/A380text

[Philip Argy]

Originally Posted by Montague S

or is it a case of just getting the news now but it actually occurred a while back? ....

The news story is time stamped 12 May 2008 at "12.00 am" (which I don't think is a time that technically exists!) but then says

"IT was up, up and away for the flying kangaroo's new super jet yesterday as Qantas Airlines' first Airbus A380 effortlessly climbed into the skies above the French city of Toulouse, en route to an interior fitout in Germany" (my emphasis)

so I don't think it can be old news. That must mean that the pics accompanying the story are not of the fitout as installed in A380-01, even though I agree that the pics seem to show a lot of seats wherever they were taken.