First A380 Delivered (at Last) By Airbus

By From news reports

Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet Monday – a critical step for the European planemaker in its efforts to rebound from a string of troubles.

Singapore Airlines took delivery of the double-decker jet, the world’s largest passenger plane, almost two years late.

Singapore Airlines’ A380 superjumbos will feature private rooms with double beds for first-class passengers. Each of the planes will be fitted out with 12 first-class suites.

Passengers will pay 7,500 Singapore dollars, or $5,127, for a round-trip ticket in a suite from Singapore to Sydney, which is the route the airline has designated for the new plane.

The layout will also feature 60 business-class seats and 399 in economy class. Business class customers will pay 15 to 20 percent more on the Singapore-Sydney route on flights in the new plane than on an older Boeing 747-400 jet currently used on the route. Economy fares will fluctuate with supply and demand.

Flyers on the double-deck jetliner will also get a choice of 100 movies, more than 180 television programs, 700 compact discs and 22 radio channels.

“Until now, the A380 has been Airbus’s baby. Today we are here to celebrate this beautiful mature aircraft coming of age,” said the Airbus president, Thomas Enders, at a handover ceremony that included a sound and light show.

Acknowledging the planemaker’s difficulties, he told Airbus employees: “I realize how unsettling these last times, particularly the last 18 months, have been.”

He thanked customers for sticking with the aircraft, and said that increasing production to meet demand for the A380 “remains our greatest challenge for the next few years.”

Singapore Airlines’ chief executive, Chew Choon Seng, said the A380 “is well worth the wait.”

Airbus has gone though five chief executive officers as multiple delays in the A380 program resulted in massive write-offs and a restructuring plan that foresees 10,000 job cuts over four years – not to mention billions of euros in lost profit.

Such delays have hurt more than just profits: Airbus’s reputation has suffered, and its U.S. rival, Boeing, grabbed the top sales spot in 2006. But Boeing itself recently announced a six-month delay for its hot-selling 787 Dreamliner, leaving the double-decker A380 – at least temporarily – to claim the limelight.

Morale at Airbus has also been hurt by accusations that senior managers profited from knowledge about the A380 problems to cash in on share options. A preliminary report by the French Financial Markets Authority pointed to “massive insider trading” at European Aeronautic Defense & Space, Airbus’s parent company.

Attended by about 500 guests, the handover ceremony was, however, much more low key than the triumphal 2005 ceremony when the A380 was unveiled. Then, the 10,000-strong audience included French, German and British leaders who admired the plane’s exterior but were not allowed inside, where problems lurked.

Government officials, some of whom have come under the spotlight in the insider trading inquiry, were absent Monday.

Speaking earlier to ARD television of Germany, Enders dismissed suggestions that Airbus was pursuing the wrong strategy by producing the superjumbo in a market that likely will be interested in smaller planes and point-to-point routes in the future.

“It isn’t ‘either-or,’ it is both,” Enders said. “We also have aircraft for the long, thin routes – our 330 and 340, and in the future the 350. So we are not putting everything on the 380, but we are convinced that, above all in certain regions, the growth in air traffic can only be mastered with aircraft like the 380.”

He said Airbus was moving past the problems that dogged the aircraft. “We have understood what we did wrong, we have established what we must change, and this process of change is now under way,” he said.

The A380′s inaugural commercial flight has been set for Oct. 25 from Singapore to Sydney. Singapore Airlines has auctioned all seats on the first flight on eBay, raising about $1.25 million for charity.

Already 16 customers, including British Airways, have booked 189 orders or firm commitments for the A380.

Originally published by AP, HT, Bloomberg.

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