Countdown begins for Airbus superjumbo

SINGAPORE (AFP) — The first Airbus A380 superjumbo landed in Singapore on Wednesday, as the countdown began for next week's maiden commercial flight of the biggest passenger airliner ever built.

The Singapore Airlines (SIA) jet touched down at 1040 GMT -- 10 minutes late -- at Changi Airport, where hundreds of guests in business suits toasted its arrival with champagne. The A380 arrived from France, where Airbus officials finally saw off the giant plane after 18 months of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns. Production problems on the double-decker behemoth embarrassed the European manufacturer, a bitter rival of US firm Boeing, but SIA stuck with its initial order of 10 planes and later ordered nine more.At a welcoming ceremony, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called the A380's arrival "a milestone in aviation history" and compared it to the launch of Boeing's 747 jumbo in 1970. The A380 will make its first commercial flight on October 25 from Singapore to Sydney. Seats on that flight were sold in a charity auction on the eBay online marketplace. Regular service on the route begins on October 28. The superjumbo is enormous -- each wing could hold about 72 cars, and each plane contains more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) of wiring. It could carry 853 passengers in an all-economy configuration.But in what could be a trend, Singapore Airlines has installed just 471 seats to offer more space, particularly in business and first class.SIA's version has 399 economy seats, 60 business seats, and a "Suites" class of 12 compartments with 58-centimetre (23-inch) flat-screen televisions, sheets by French designer Givenchy and a full-length bed behind sliding doors."This week, the game changes and we in Singapore Airlines are very proud to be the launch customer," Bey Soo Khiang, the airline's senior executive president for operations and services, told dozens of local and foreign journalists ahead of the plane's arrival."What you see tonight is not just a step but a quantum leap in the standards of air travel."Reporters were shown mock-ups of the three new cabins, complete with SIA flight attendants in their trademark figure-hugging uniforms.SIA, which early on began advertising that it would be "first to fly" the A380, had expressed disappointment with holdups in the superjumbo. But all was forgotten Wednesday as the airline took out full-page advertisements in Asia to herald its Suites class and trumpet the arrival of the plane.At the welcoming party, Airbus's chief operating officer, John Leahy, thanked SIA for its "patience, understanding and unrelenting confidence" during the 18-month delay.The A380 problems over the past two years provoked management changes as well as a politically sensitive cost-cutting plan at Airbus.Even as it celebrated delivery of the A380, the European aerospace group EADS, Airbus's parent, announced Wednesday that delivery of its first A400M military transport plane to the French air force would be delayed by at least six months.The A380 was also at the centre of an insider-trading scandal, with top managers and key shareholders suspected of selling shares in EADS before the A380 production problems were made public.But 16 airlines have placed firm orders for the A380 -- which some analysts have called a "white elephant". Dubai-based Emirates is the leading client on a list of predominantly Asian, European and Gulf-based customers.Airbus says the A380 will offer the lowest cost per passenger of any airliner, will emit less carbon dioxide per passenger, and significantly reduce takeoff and landing noise.Leahy called it a "gentle, green giant."The A380 will allow the phasing out of SIA's Boeing 747 jumbos over the next three to four years, Bey said,"The big step coming with these aircraft is the economics of it, the efficiency of it," said Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent for industry publication Orient Aviation."More than simply a big airplane, the newest industry flagship will change forever the way the industry operates," the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation consultancy said in a report.

Ballantyne said SIA will have the A380 market to itself for almost the next year, until Australian carrier Qantas takes delivery of its first superjumbo."It's a Singapore Airlines thing, being first," Ballantyne said. "It gives them a huge marketing edge."

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