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On April 27, 2005, the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, successfully circled the Bay of Biscay on its maiden flight. The test pilot Claude Lelaie termed the flight as a ‘milestone’ while the then French President Jacques Chirace said “A new page of aeronautical history has been written. It is a magnificent result for European industrial cooperation.”

A decade later, the super jumbo has criss-crossed the globe, at an average of one A380 taking off or landing every four minutes. That is a superlative story for an aircraft which has been a game-changer. There have been concerns, but nonetheless the Airbus A380 has held its ground. The behemoth has established itself as the world’s favourite Very Large Aircaft (VLA) with 317 orders booked from 18 customers representing a 90 per cent share of this market. The A380’s track record is as remarkable as the jetliner’s distinctive profile, transporting nearly three million passengers every month on some 200 flights performed in daily service with its 13 current operators.

While Singapore Airlines was the launch customer in October 2007, it is Emirates which has emerged as the fleet leader, having received 60 A380 aircraft. Emirates’ investment in the Airbus A380 programme has had a significant impact on the UK and wider European economies. A recent Frontier Economics report identified that in 2013-14 Emirates’ investment in the A380 created 7,000 UK jobs, equating to a $630 million (€595 million) GDP contribution. Across the EU, Emirates’ 140 A380 orders are estimated to have supported 41,000 jobs, equivalent to a massive $3.6 billion (€3.4 billion) GDP. As of April 2015, Airbus had orders of 317 for the A380 of which 159 have been delivered.

The Aircraft

Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jetliner. It was initially named Airbus A3XX and designed to challenge Boeing’s monopoly in the large-aircraft market. The A380’s upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, with a width equivalent to a wide-body aircraft. This gives the A380-800’s cabin 478 square metres of usable floor space, 40 per cent more than the next largest airliner, the Boeing 747-8 and provides seating for 525 people in a typical threeclass configuration or up to 853 people in an all-economy class configuration. The A380-800 has a design range of 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km), sufficient to fly non-stop from Dallas to Sydney, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 kmph) at cruising altitude.

Engine Alliance

Two new-generation engine options (the Engine Alliance GP7200 and Rolls-Royce Trent 900), combined with an advanced wing and landing gear design make the A380 significantly quieter than today’s largest airliner, enabling this very large aircraft to meet strict local regulations at airports around the world.

The Engine Alliance is a 50/50 joint venture between GE Transportation-Aircraft Engines and Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies company. Revenue sharing partners include MTU Aero Engines of Germany, Snecma (Safran) of France and Techspace Aero of (Safran) Belgium. The A380 engine – GP7200 from Engine Alliance has a take-off thrust of approximately 70,000 pounds with capability to more than 80,000 pounds, and was developed by combining the strong features of the existing PW4090 and GE90 engines. The GP7200 engine uses 10 per cent less fuel than the current engine used to power the B747-400 and also meets current Stage 3 and proposed level 4 noise level standards with margin.

Airlines operating GP7200 engines have enjoyed the merits of the quietest, most reliable and most fuel-efficient power plant for the A380. The GP7200 engine has sustained an average of 99.9 per cent departure reliability since entry into service. Additionally, customers have benefited from a fuel savings advantage of up to $1 million per aircraft per year.

The Engine Alliance powered A380 entered service in August 2008 and currently 82 A380s are flying with EA engines – 57 with Emirates, ten each with Air France and Korean Air, four with Qatar Airways and one with Etihad Airways.

Cabin Arrangement

The jetliner’s standard four-class cabin arrangement includes more high-yield seats with a premium economy section, additional seats in business class and an even more luxurious first-class layout. Airlines can gain a revenue boost approximately equivalent to a 50 per cent saving in fuel burn through applying this market-matched cabin segmentation and the latest cabin innovations.

The A380 cabin is the quietest and most spacious in the sky. A380 service offerings range from a comfortable 11-abreast economy section with 18-inch-wide seats, up to a private three-room suite for a luxurious first-class experience. It is no wonder passengers opt for the comfort of the A380 when given the choice – meaning higher market share, load factors and revenues for airlines.

The A380 allows airlines to grow their markets, increase their market share and, consequently control their fares ensuring they own the sky

With its four-class standard layout, the A380 also accommodates the growing demand for a premium economy section which is driven by the large percentage of business travellers flying in economy. At the same time, business class has evolved towards full-flat beds and the A380 provides space for the most unique offerings available.The A380 also allows carriers to further differentiate their first class cabin with a truly distinct luxury product that only this double-deck jetliner can offer, including such unique features as private suites and the Residence by Etihad. The A380’s main deck cabin is wider than any airliner in service today, allowing for more spacious seats and aisles along with open spaces and access to additional amenities such as business centres and bar/social areas.

As an example, many airlines are incorporating a Premium Economy cabin, adding higher-revenue economy class seating while maintaining equivalent overall passenger count totals. As a result, airlines are able to boost the average passenger yield and generate approximately $13 million in additional revenue annually for each of their A380s. Airbus also is offering an 11-abreast budget economy class layout, which retains Airbus’ comfort standard with 18-inch-wide seats.

Technology Benchmarks

Greener, cleaner, quieter and smarter, the A380 is setting new benchmarks for the global aviation industry with its superior efficiency, profitability and operational effectiveness. Not only is it setting new passenger comfort standards, the A380 also is raising the bar for environmental standards with its low fuel consumption and noise levels as well as reduced CO₂ and NOx emissions.

The A380’s cockpit which is based on Airbus’ industry-leading flight deck design for its fly-by-wire jetliner families features the latest advances in cockpit technology, including larger interactive displays, an advanced flight management system and improved navigation modes. A key A380 innovation is the use of an electronic library to largely replace the traditional paper documentation used by pilots. This library allows flight and maintenance crews to easily locate relevant operational information in the various flight manuals, lists and logbooks, while enabling an optimisation of performance and weight-and-balance computations.

Optimised Landing Performance

Airbus introduced its innovative Brake to Vacate technology on the A380, which allows the flight crew to more effectively manage the approach and landing and to pre-select the optimum runway exit. This can reduce runway occupancy time by up to 30 per cent significantly increasing the number of aircraft that can be handled by the airport.

Advanced Materials

By incorporating the latest advances in structures and materials, the A380 offers a direct operating cost per passenger that is 15 per cent lower than the competing large airliner. This includes the use of advanced aluminium alloys for the wing and fuselage, along with the extensive application of composite materials in the centre wing box’s primary structure, wing ribs and rear fuselage section. The A380 also uses Glare™ material in the pressurised fuselage’s upper and lateral shells. Glare™ is a laminate incorporating alternate layers of aluminium alloy and glass fibre reinforced adhesive, with its properties optimised by adjusting the number of plies and orientation of the glass tapes. This offers a significant reduction in weight and provides very good fatigue and damage resistance characteristics.

Capacity Pitch

As several airports are overcrowded and cannot fulfill airline demands for movements at peak times, making slots a nearly priceless resource, the A380 enables operators to hit the ‘sweet spot’ by replacing multiple flights of smaller aircraft with one optimised, right-timed and right-sized service. The single A380 operation retains the same number of high-revenuegenerating seats in the premium-class cabins while releasing the unused slot for other destinations.

Boosting capacity on key trunk routes has wide reaching beneficial network effects by unblocking direct and connecting traffic. Furthermore A380 routings demonstrate a superior yield, capturing the best quality traffic in a given market 80 per cent of the time. The A380 allows airlines to grow their markets, increase their market share and, consequently control their fares ensuring they own the sky.

The A380 already offers more seats per departure than any other aircraft, with the best cabin product in all classes. It is a key resource for many of the world’s largest airlines, helping reshape their networks, optimise slot value at congested airports and maximise revenue across entire networks.

The A380 increases network productivity by maximising the efficiency of arrival and departure waves, thereby allowing reduced transfer times, more connections and a fully optimised hub, something that no other aircraft can deliver.