Airbus A380 Lumbers Into LAX
The world’s largest passenger airplane, the Airbus A380, made a near perfect landing at Los Angeles International Airport Monday. Hundreds of spectators lined up to see the plane, arriving non-stop from France, land and roll out on the northernmost runway of LAX. A second A380 had landed just moments earlier at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport after its non-stop flight from Frankfurt, Germany.
The landings were part of a PR move on the part of Airbus officials who so far haven’t landed any orders for the behemoth A380 from U.S. carriers. Perhaps they wanted to prove that the monstrous eight-story double-decker, with a wingspan the length of a football field and described by some as a sperm whale with wings, could actually fly.
But LAX, who in recent years has lost market share to competing terminals, is spending billions in upgrades, some of which are designed specifically for the A380. For example, the southern-most runway has been closed for an entire year while construction crews completely remove it and build a new one just 55 feet further south. The reason? The A380’s wingspan is 50 feet greater than the 747. It’s a big bet on an airplane that may not be as successful as the competing Boeing product. But if Los Angeles wants to remain competitive, they’ve got to spend money to make money.
As it stands now, there are no orders for the cargo version of the A380, and only 150 or so orders for the passenger version, none from U.S. airlines, presumably due to the A380’s history of wiring problems, weight issues (how very American), and long delays.
But the airplane is certainly impressive; in single class configuration it can carry as many as 853 passengers. Of course, I’m not aware of any airline interested in using that configuration. Launch customer Singapore Airlines settled on a three-class 485-seat configuration and Quantas a 500-seat arrangement. With those numbers, the advantage over the 747 is far lower than it initially appeared.
Still, it’s an impressive airplane, even more so because of the multi-national conglomeration which overcame the inefficiencies of administrative overhead and diverse geography to build the thing in the first place.
Airbus claims the A380 will yield a 35 per cent savings in per passenger operating costs while being faster and quieter than competing aircraft. It remains to be seen whether some of that will translate into lower air fares.
Doug
The Airbus A380 may have been on its American tour last week but, according to an article in BusinessWeek, the FAA has certified only 11 airports nationwide as capable of handling the mega-plane. The airports: Anchorage, Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Louisville (cargo only), New York-JFK, Memphis (cargo only), Miami, Ontario (California — cargo only), Orlando, and San Francisco. This means the A380 wouldn’t have been allowed to land at half the airports in the U.S. that it visited last week. (Note that Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles aren’t on that list…) Via upgradetravelbetter
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My brother was at LAX and watched the Airbus land. He says it was extremely loud, contrary to reports that it is more quiet than the 747 and other planes. And it is bib, really big! You have to wonder how it can fly.
OMG that thing is BIG! Don't think for a minute that U.S. airlines will configure it like Singapore Airlines. Singapore thinks first of passenger comfort. U.S. carriers like United think of how many paying passengers they can cram in and how many bags of pretzels they need. Within two years of putting the a380 into service, United will manage to squeeze in 800 coach and 40 first and business class passengers. I'm taking bets!
I saw the video of it landing at LAX and it looked like it landed crooked and squirreled to get straight. The press called it a perfect landing but if you saw it, it was kind of messey in my opinion.