The Hindu Business Line : Big bird

Whoever said that good things come in small packages obviously had no idea about the double-decker, mega liner — the Airbus A-380, the biggest passenger aircraft set to enter commercial operations by the end of the year. It was the sheer size of the aircraft which commanded awe and respect at Frankfurt airport as members of the international media, staff members of Airbus and Lufthansa and 50 lucky winners of a radio quiz boarded the aircraft on its first commercial route-proving flight in Asia in late March. No amount of reading on the aircraft, seeing it on television or even walking down the aisles in the prototype at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse prepared one for its sheer size as it taxied in for a nine-hour, non-stop flight to Hong Kong.

For starters, as the plane reached its parking position, 12 service vehicles, the largest number used for any aircraft, could be seen racing towards it. Then, instead of two aerobridges, the double-decker aircraft had three aerobridges to help flyers board. The feeling of size and space was further accentuated as one entered the aircraft. Strolling through the upper and lower decks it was not difficult to imagine that it could easily carry 555 passengers and, what is more important, in extreme comfort. Then, of course, there was the feeling of being in two independent aircraft as one made one's way from the upper to the lower deck.

Quiet performer

The feeling of respect remained intact when the four-engine, 22-wheeled aircraft took off. The takeoff (and, later, landing at Hong Kong) was as smooth as could be but what was even better was that there was none of the noise that one normally associates with a takeoff. Not a mean achievement when one considers that the operating empty weight of the A-380 is 276,800 kg (with a maximum takeoff weight of 560,000 kg), it has a wing span of 845 sq metres, has 530 km of cable and over 40,000 connectors hidden in its interiors, and was carrying 519 passengers with their bags and baggage, had eight water tanks carrying 2,260 litres, besides of course meals, liquor and enough drinking water. Given the sheer size of the aircraft (it carries 60 per cent more passengers than the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet), the pilots were assisted in the takeoff and landing by two taxi cameras — one that looks out from the tail over the fuselage and wings, and the second that displays the precise position of the nose, the landing gear and the path to follow.

Cruising at an altitude of over 40,000 ft, the sense of quiet was deepened by the feeling of space and comfort thanks to the large windows, wide seats and mood lighting which changes depending on the time of day or night. Boasting the largest economy class seats (31-34 inches), the A-380 also has wide business class seats (58-61 inches) and a special first-class where the lighting and illumination technology used can create a very individual room atmosphere. According to Airbus, the lighting is also meant to help the flyer adapt to changing biorhythms.

Choice of interiors

SIZING UP: Roomy and plush

Apart from these comfort-enhancing features, which are basic to all A-380s, each airline can do up the interiors according to its preference. Hence, the aircraft on its first route-proving flight in Asia (jointly organised with Lufthansa) did not come with the airline colours, as Lufthansa is still deciding on the interiors. Singapore Airlines, which will be the first to fly the double-decker aircraft by the end of the year, too is working on the final details of the interiors. In all, 14 airlines have placed orders for 156 A-380s and these include Emirates, Thai Airways, Qatar Airways and Korean Air. In India, Kingfisher is the only airline that has placed orders for the A-380.

By 2011, the A-380 can be spotted at 70 airports across the world in different colours. Regular flyers will also see different seat configurations on different aircraft, depending on what each airline decides. The test aircraft that will fly in from Germany to Hong Kong and then onward to India this week, as part of Kingfisher's second anniversary celebrations, will have 64 business and 136 economy-class seats on the upper deck and 12 first and 307 business-class seats on the lower deck. While a spiral staircase at the back of the aircraft connects the two economy-class sections, a glitzy well-carpeted staircase in the front connects the first class on the lower deck to the business class on the upper deck.

Airlines, however, are free to change the seating configuration to suit individual needs; so, the entire upper deck can, for instance, be converted into a first-class segment with a bar and a duty-free lounge or, conversely, the lower deck can be reserved for business and first-class passengers.

Feeding an Airbus

The model developed by Airbus provides for 555 people in the standard three-class configuration or up to 853 people in a full economy-class configuration. Hence, while Lufthansa, which will receive its first A-380 aircraft in the summer of 2009, is looking at 549 seats (in a three-class configuration) and plans flights on 20 heavily frequented routes to Asia and North America, Singapore Airlines is looking at doing the interiors to accommodate 458 flyers.

The mock-up housed at Toulouse, however, comes with some facilities that most airlines are likely to retain. Hence, while they may do away with the bar and lounge or may increase the space for the duty-free shop, what they will have to retain is the space required for meals — after all, feeding 555 passengers on long-haul flights would mean carrying that much more food!

Incidentally, the flight from Germany to Hong Kong carried 535 meals. Its cabin crew used two lifts to ferry the food on the two decks. The A-380 aircraft that flew from Frankfurt to Hong Kong was one of the five that took part in the test programme as part of the exercise to get all regulatory clearances. Before they took off on the commercial route-proving flights to America and Hong Kong, these planes had logged over 2,666 hours of flying with 1,846 take-offs and landing till December 2006.

Work on the new aircraft, initially christened the A3XX, started in 1994 and after a series of changes and design improvements the final design was refined between 1997 and 2000. On December 17, 2000, the Airbus board voted to launch a 8.8 billion euros programme to build the aircraft now called the A-380.