$123,000 for a ride on the A380

The Australian

AUSTRALIANS may have difficulty escaping Airbus’s A380 superjumbo in coming weeks as Singapore Airlines starts services to Sydney and the European manufacturer sends two more planes down under.

As Singapore builds up to the first airline service between Singapore and Sydney on October 25, Airbus has announced that its MSN009 test aircraft will make a quick visit to Melbourne on October 10.

Another A380 will also visit Australia in December but details of that stopover were not available earlier this week.

MSN009 is the aircraft powered by the new Engine Alliance GP7000 engines, the alternative to the Rolls Royce Trent 900s.

The visit is part of a series of four tours making up a technical route-proving exercise for certification, expected by December.

“MSN009 doesn’t have a cabin – it’s a working aeroplane,” said Airbus spokesman Ted Porter.

“It’s doing the engine tests and some airport compatibility tests, the usual things that the Rolls Royce planes did.”

The exercise aims to accumulate 150 hours of typical airline continuous operation and will involve visits to North America and South America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

It will need to demonstrate that it can be turned around under normal airline operations. As well as the airport compatibility check, this will include checks on standard aircraft maintenance and behaviour.

But MSN009’s visit is likely to go comparatively unnoticed compared to the first commercial flight of the plane to Sydney.

SIA raised almost $S2 billion ($1.5 billion) for charities, including two Sydney hospitals, in an online auction in which Australians made up the biggest group of bidders.

One Sydneysider spent $123,000 on a package that includes two first-class suites and a spot at the handover ceremony in Toulouse on October 15.
It will be a major milestone for Airbus, which has battled production problems that delayed the A380 by two years, and will come as a relief to airlines keen for new aircraft to serve growing markets.

The arrival of the giant plane is also likely to be particularly exciting for a class of grade five and grade six students from Sydney.

Students from St Paul of the Cross Primary School won an art competition that will see them given a special tour of the superjumbo the day after it arrives in Sydney.

Qantas, which has ordered 20 A380s, expects its first planes to arrive next August, and Emirates has also indicated it will fly A380s to Australia.