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Airbus begins A380 production
Friday May 7, 2004
Amid pomp and ceremony, plane-making company Airbus today inaugurated the huge facility in which it will assemble the worlds largest passenger aircraft, the 555-seat A380 superjumbo. This particular aircraft will not fly and will be used for on-the-ground tests. Assembly of the first plane that will go into service will begin on May 27th. Todays ceremony, conducted before 3,000 guests, including French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, took place in a £240m new facility which is nearly 500m long. The French prime minister described the A380, which has a range of more than 9,000 miles, as the, greatest aircraft in the world. Speaking at the launch, the company's chief executive, Noel Forgeard, announced that Airbus was in talks with a US airline about possible orders for the A380. Mr Forgeard said he was also confident that at least one Japanese airline would operate the aircraft. Airbus was in talks with four other Asian carriers on the plane, including one in China, he added. Airbus has already received 129 firm orders for the A380 from 11 airlines including Virgin Atlantic, Air France, Lufthansa and Qantas, but as yet no US passenger carrier has placed an order for the superjumbo. Airbus, which delivered more planes than Boeing last year for the first time, insists there is a market of 1,163 for the A380. Over the next few years, Airbus will produce an ever-increasing number of the aircraft, with production rising to four planes a month by 2008. The first A380 flight is scheduled for early next year and it will go into passenger service in 2006. Mr Forgeard said the A380 programme, costing £6.5bn, needed 250 orders at £156m each to break even, a target he believes could be met by 2008 with delivery by 2012. |
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Airbus begins A380 production
Amid pomp and ceremony, plane-making company Airbus today inaugurated
the huge facility in which it will assemble the worlds largest passenger aircraft, the 555-seat A380 superjumbo. As one who well remembers when the 747 went from the top of air transportation to the bottom rung of cram-everyone-in -- which happened in a very brief period of time -- I hope I never have to fly on the 380. |
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Airbus begins A380 production
Looking forward to riding on one of these things. Should be really
interesting. -- "I'll find Fry's coffin, get his corpse and keep it under my mattress to remind me that he's really dead. That'll prove I'm not insane!" Goliath & Wildwing's Storage Room http://anatidae.homestead.com/ |
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