Airbus A380

Damaged Qantas A380 Refurbishment Underway

Work to return to service the Qantas Airbus A380 damaged in last November’s uncontained engine failure is underway in Singapore.
The aircraft, which was substantially damaged when the number two Rolls-Royce Trent 900 shed a turbine disc, is about to be placed on stress jacks for major repairs to the wing and fuselage. Work will likely include replacement or repairs to the number one engine nacelle adjacent to the number two engine which was destroyed. The number two engine and nacelle is also being replaced.
According to industry sources the engineering team aim to get the aircraft flightworthy by year end, with a first test flight provisionally planned for January 6, 2012.
Pending successful tests the repaired A380 is expected to be repatriated to Australia in February - some 16 months after the incident.
The start of repair work, covered under an Aus $135 million insurance claim, puts a final end to speculation that the A380 would be written off. Airbus meanwhile declines to comment on the implications for possible longer term redesign as a result of lessons learned from the incident.
A380 product marketing director Richard Carcaillet says “the two preliminary reports so far have focused on the engine event. However if there are any lessons for systems and procedures then we will take action. But with the co-operation of Rolls-Royce we have put a line of defense into the Fadec (full authority digital engine control), so that in the event of detecting a similar condition it will shut down quickly,” he adds.
Rolls has “now inspected and modified the whole fleet,” says Carcallet. For the moment the fix is the revised Fadec software, though longer term design changes are also underway to the engine, he adds.
The updated software commands an engine shut down if it detects the threat of an intermediate high pressure turbine overspeed occurring. Rolls is meanwhile working on a longer-term redesign of the Trent 900 oil system, a fire in which triggered the event.
Rolls-Royce has also agreed to pay (US) $100.5 million compensation to Qantas.

National carrier Vietnam Airlines has sought government approval to invest USD$8.38 billion to expand its fleet, taking it to 110 aircraft by 2015 in the first phase, a state-run newspaper reported on Friday.
The airline is currently operating around 300 flights a day with 68 aircraft. It wants to take its total fleet to 170 by 2020, according to plans submitted to the government for approval, Dau Tu (Investment) newspaper, which is run by the Planning and Investment Ministry, said.

The fleet would by then include wide-body Airbus A350-900s, Boeing 787-9s, Airbus A380s as well as narrow-body A320s and A321s plus ATR-72s and Bombardier CSeries, the report said.

The airline will soon buy jet fuel produced by Dung Quat oil refinery, the country's only such facility, which will meet up to a third of the national carrier's annual fuel demand, state-run newspapers said on Friday.

(Reuters)

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] indicates that it still aims to conclude major aircraft orders soon, despite its much expected buying spree at the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] not materialising.

Although the Doha-based carrier disclosed a deal for six more [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-300ERs on the first day of the show, .....

.....expected orders for [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] A320neos, A380s and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] CSeries twinjets were not announced.
"We're still interested in the CSeries, but have deferred our decision to a later date," [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] chief executive Akbar Al Baker told Flight International.
A major stumbling block for Qatar Airways in its CSeries negotiations had centred on engine maintenance cost guarantees from engine supplier.

However, Al Baker said these issues have now been resolved. "We have no material differences with Pratt on the PW1500G," he added.

Al Baker said that the airline also intends to order A320s "but we don't know when. We still have unfinished business with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on other matters".
He did not disclose what these issues related to or the status of the airline's talks for additional A380s.

China Southern to operate A380 on domestic routes

China Southern Airlines will operate its new Airbus A380s on daily domestic Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shanghai Hongqiao services.
This would make the SkyTeam alliance member the first operator of the superjumbo to deploy the aircraft on domestic routes. This is due to high domestic demand for air services on both routes, said a company official.
The other existing A380 operators - Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas Airways, Air France and Korean Air - only deploy them on international services.
China Southern will receive its first A380 in September and its second A380 in November, the airline's chairman Si Xianmin told Air Transport Intelligence in June.
Ticket sales for both domestic services will begin on 20 September, but a decision has not been made on when services will begin, said the company official.
China Southern's first international A380 service will be on the Guangzhou-Paris route, added the official.
The airline could increase the frequency on all three A380 services by end-2011.
It could also operate the aircraft on services to the USA, Si told ATI in June.

Jeannot a écrit:China Southern va mettre en ligne ses A380s sur des lignes intérieures.

China Southern to operate A380 on domestic routes

China Southern Airlines will operate its new Airbus A380s on daily domestic Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shanghai Hongqiao services.
This would make the SkyTeam alliance member the first operator of the superjumbo to deploy the aircraft on domestic routes. This is due to high domestic demand for air services on both routes, said a company official.
The other existing A380 operators - Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas Airways, Air France and Korean Air - only deploy them on international services.
China Southern will receive its first A380 in September and its second A380 in November, the airline's chairman Si Xianmin told Air Transport Intelligence in June.
Ticket sales for both domestic services will begin on 20 September, but a decision has not been made on when services will begin, said the company official.
China Southern's first international A380 service will be on the Guangzhou-Paris route, added the official.
The airline could increase the frequency on all three A380 services by end-2011.
It could also operate the aircraft on services to the USA, Si told ATI in June.

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

• image plutôt "haute en couleur" d'AirAsia au travers de son CEO, Tony FERNADES ("John, ... if you really want the order, ....you gotta show me, ... you gotta dance"),
  
• en contraste avec le côté sobre, sérieux et discipliné d'ANA,
  

Quand Dancer JOHN sera remis de ses émotions, et qu'il voudra vendre des Airbus A380 (ou d'autres, tels que les A350-XWB), au Japon, TF pourra l'inviter à venir "danser" au bon moment, .... pour ANA, Peach & Co., n'est-ce pas ?

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]

BLAGNAC, France--It may not be the longest passenger plane in the world, or necessarily the most famous. But the Airbus A380 is unquestionably the biggest: a true double-decker airplane that can carry more passengers than any other commercial plane in the sky.
Built to carry 525 passengers in a standard 3-class configuration, the A380 is a behemoth of a plane that Airbus says today leads the industry in cost per seat mile. While other airliners may be seen as rivals, "you have to have [an] A380 to compete with an A380," Airbus says.
As part of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], reporter Daniel Terdiman visited the A380 final assembly line in this airport town just outside Toulouse, France. While the major components of the plane--the fuselage, wings, tail, tail fins, and more, are manufactured at Airbus facilities elsewhere, they are shipped to, and assembled, here.
What emerges from this factory, which Airbus says is the largest industrial building in Europe, is a massive airplane, one that has been flown--or at least ordered--by 18 different customers, including 11 of the world's top 20 largest.
This is the nose section of an A380 being built in what is known as Station 40, at the facility in Blagnac.

Photo by Kathleen Craig