Airbus A380

Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 is the world's biggest and heaviest passenger airliner. It was Airbus's answer to the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet and although not much bigger in overall dimensions, it is a lot heavier and it has two passenger decks over the full length of the fuselage. However, the A380 did not become a commercial success.

Airbus began considering to develop an ultra-high-capacity airliner in 1988. At that time, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas were also thinking about very big aircraft programmes. Boeing studied stretched versions of the 747 but also considered an all-new design. McDonnell Douglas tried to generate interest for its MD-12, a double deck passenger aircraft somewhat smaller than the later A380. Airbus talked with both McDonnell Douglas and Boeing about building such a big aircraft together, because of the huge investment involved and the limited market prospects for very big airliners. But in the end Airbus went alone.

A3XX

In June 1994, Airbus adopted the tentative designation 'A3XX' for its proposed big airliner. One of the designs under study was a combination of two A340-fuselages 'glued' together side-by-side, but later the A3XX design became a double-decker with two passenger decks. It still took many years until the decision to develop the aircraft was taken. Airbus officially launched the project on 19 December, 2000. The aircraft didn't become 'A350', as first proposed, but 'A380', inspired by the double deck, a concept that looks like an '8'.

On 27 April, 2005, the Airbus A380 flew for the first time from Toulouse Blagnac, where the final assembly of the air giant took place. Five A380s were involved in the flight test programme and the aircraft type was certified by EASA and FAA on December 12, 2006. However, service entry by Singapore Airlines, originally planned for March 2006, had to be postponed until October 2007, because of a very slow start of the production. One of causes of the delay was an expensive mistake with the complex wiring of the aircraft. Airbus facilities in different countries used different versions of the CATIA design software, and that resulted in wires which appeared too short and had to be replaced with new wires.

First commercial flight

Airbus delivered its first 'Megajet' or 'SuperJumbo' to Singapore Airlines on 15 October, 2007. The first commercial flight took place on 25 October, 2007 from Singapore to Sydney. In Spring 2012, Airbus had sold 253 A380s and delivered around 70. Among the users at that time were Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Air France, Qantas, Lufthansa, Korean Air and China Southern Airlines. Emirates became a real fan of the flying giant and its biggest customer. The airline took delivery of a total of 123 A380s.

The A380 appeared very popular among the travelling public. The cabin offers a lot of floor space, which can even be used for bars, beauty salons, shops, and restaurants. For example: Emirates offers a bar lounge and seating area on the upper deck, and, a remarkable novelty: a shower cabin for first class passengers. Most airlines preferred, however, to install more seats. On the maindeck there is standard 10-abreast seating in economy class with two aisles, although 11-abreast is also possible. On the upperdeck, seating in economy class is 8-abreast. The upper and lower decks are connected by two stairways, one fore and one aft. The basic version is the A380-800 with 525-seats in a three-class configuration. In charter-layout there is even space for up to 853 passengers.

Cockpit

The A380's paperless cockpit has side-sticks for controlling the aircraft, like all Airbus-models have since the Airbus A320. Flight information is presented on eight liquid crystal displays.

Airbus offers customers a choice of two engines: the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Pratt & Whitney - General Electric Engine Alliance GP7200. The intention was to build the A380 without trust reversers on the engines, but later Airbus equipped the two inboard engines with such a device. The two outboard engines don't have reversers in order to reduce the amount of debris flying around during landing. Much attention is paid to keep the noise level of the aircraft low.

The A380 has a 20-wheel main landing gear with four legs. The inboard legs each have six wheels, the outboard legs count four. The noseleg has two wheels. The A380 can land and takeoff on any runway which is also suitble for the Boeing 747, but because the A380 is so big, many airports had to adapt taxiways and terminals in order to host the aircraft.

Wing

The A380 has an enormous wing compared to the 747-400: 845 m2 against 524 m2. Airbus kept the wing rather simple by the use of single-slotted trailing edge flaps, leading edge slats on the outer wing and two-section drooped nose devices between the fuselage and inboard engines. The A380 has a rather low approach speed of 260 km/h (140 kts - 747-400: 289 km/h - 156 kts). The large wing was actually optimised for larger future versions, resulting in a rather high empty weight for the A380-800. A slender wing with higher aspect ratio would have resulted in lower fuel consumption, but with such a wing, the A380 would have grown out of the 80x80 meter box.

Cabin

Embarking and disembarking of passengers happens by one or two main deck passenger bridges and one upper deck bridge, depending on the airport. Departure lounges had to be increased. At Los Angeles one of its runways needed to be widened and taxiways relocated.

Composite materials

22 percent of the A380's airframe consists of composite materials like carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, glass-fibre reinforced plastic and quartz-fibre reinforced plastic. They are used in the wing, fuselage sections, tail surfaces and doors. The A380 is the first commercial airliner with a central wing box of carbon fibre reinforced plastic. The composite material GLARE (GLAss-REinforced fibre metal laminate) is used in the upper fuselage and on the leading edges of the stabilisers. GLARE is built-up of alternating layers of aluminium and glass fibre material. The concept saves weight and offers more structural strength than just aluminium.

Fuel system

The A380 has an advanced fuel system, which helps actively controlling the aircraft in flight. Because before take-off fuel in the wing makes the wing bend too much, fuel is mainly kept in the inboard tanks and in tailplane tanks. Later, when the aircraft is in the air, the fuel is gradually pumped into the wing tanks. The system helps to control the centre of gravity and reduce drag. Drag is also reduced by wingtip fences like on the A310 and A320.

Big parts of the aircraft were built by Airbus partners in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Big sumassemblies were flown to Toulouse by A300-600ST Beluga aircraft. But some sections are too big for transport by air. Airbus even acquired some special ships for transportation parts over sea and rivers. Surface transportation in France was a complex operation. Roads had to be modified to accommodate the oversized road convoys. After assembly in Toulouse the A380s were flown to Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport for painting and interior fitting.

Versions

Airbus has built only one basic version of the A380, the A380-800. The aircraft manufacturer had plans to develop several derivatives. It had already launched an A380-800 based A380F cargo variant. However, because of the production delays, customers cancelled all 27 orders for freighters or converted them to passenger aircraft. This forced Airbus to stop the development of the A380F. Among the airlines that ordered the freighter were FedEx (Federal Express) and UPS (United Parcel Service). The A380F was designed for a 150 tons payload. However, it lacked the hinged nose cargo door of the 747 freighters, which is an advantage for loading and unloading outsize cargo. The A380 also needed special ground equipment for loading the upper deck.
Other versions considered by Airbus were the A380-700 'short-body', seating 480 passengers in a three-class layout and the A380-900 'stretch' with 656 seats in three classes and around one thousand passengers in an high-density configuration.

A380neo

In 2015-2016 Airbus discussed plans for an 'A380neo' with new engines and possibly a stretch. Emirates liked the idea of an A380neo, but other airlines didn't show interest. Airbus didn't go ahead with the neo and began looking for less ambitious ways to cut operating costs: the 'A380plus' with increased seat density including 11-abreast (3-5-3) seating on the maindeck and removal of the front cabin stairs to carry a total of 80 more passengers. The 'A380plus' would also be fitted with new, larger winglets, and Airbus proposed aerodynamic wing refinements to reduce fuel consumption. Longer maintenance intervals and shorter downtime for the six year check should also help to reduce operating costs. The A380plus wasn't built however.

The end

Production of the A380 reached its peak in 2012 and 2014. In each of those years, Airbus delivered 30 aircraft (2.5 aircraft a month). Since then, the production decreased to only eight in 2019. Although the market for airliners was very good in the period 2010-2020, thanks to low interest rates and high fuel prices, Airbus hardly sold more A380s (and Boeing hardly sold 747-8s). Customers used to operating large fleets of 747s, did not reorder the A380 like they did with the Jumbo Jet before. Some orders were canceled and options not take up. Airbus also lost orders because customers went bankrupt (Kingfisher Airlines and Transaero), stopped long-haul flying (Air Hong Kong), canceled orders (Air Austral), endlessly deferred deliveries (Virgin Atlantic and lessor Amedeo) or couldn't pay for the aircraft (SkyMark Airlines). In 2017, SIA began returning some of its early A380s to the lessor, without replacing them with new ones.

Airbus kept saying that the A380's time had yet to come. Air travel would grow significantly for dozens of years and congestion at airports would force airlines to buy bigger aircraft. But the reality was that airlines invested in smaller twinjets, like the A350, 777 and 787, not big quads. Even the A380's biggest fan, Emirates did not take delivery of all the A380s it ordered. Until 2018, the airline signed for a total of 162 aircraft plus options on a further 16. But in February 2019, Emirates reduced its remaining outstanding orders in favour of a mix of A350s and A330neos. In the end it received 123 A380s.

Emirates's choice to buy A350s and A330neos was for Airbus the final nudge to announce that A380 production would end in 2021. The orderbook once stood at well over 300 aircraft, but in the end, Airbus delivered only 251 A380s to fourteen airlines, almost half of them to Emirates. Airbus invested around 25 billion dollars in the A380 programme, much more than the 10 billion dollars expected in 2000. Much of this enormous amount of money has not been recouped.

When Airbus launched the A380, big hubs were the core of long-haul air traffic, and Airbus expected the emergence of more big hubs around the world when air travel grew further. But due to the emergence of new twinjets, airlines opened more direct services between citypairs, avoiding hubs. And it is true that Airbus sold a lot of A380s to Emirates, but this also meant that other airlines, especially traditional users of 747s, bought only small numbers of A380s. Think of British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines.

Although the production has ended, A380s will be operated for many years to come, especially by Emirates. But not many A380s abandoned by the major airlines will find a secondary user. Actually, there hardly is a secondary market for the A380 at all. So far, only one A380 reached the secondhand market when the Portuguese airline Hi Fly began operating an ex Singapore Airlines A380, in 2018. However, the use of this aircraft ended during the corona pandemic. Abandoned A380s seem only interesting for parts. Some A380s have already been dismantled.

Airbus A380-800 Specifications

Wing span: 79.8m (261 ft 10 in). Length 72,75m (238 ft 8 in). Height 24,08 m (79 ft).
Empty weight: 276,800 kg (610,700 lb). Max. take-off weight: 560,000 kg (1,234,600 lb).
Passengers: 525-822. Range: 14,800km (8,000 nm). Cruise speed: 945 km/h (510 kts)
Engines: four Engine Alliance GP7270 (311 kN / 70.000 lb) or Rolls-Royce Trent 970 (311 kN / 70,000 lb).