Issue 251: A Big Arrival

Building and supporting the world’s largest airliner

Without doubt 2007 was the high point in the development of the Airbus A380 thus far, with its successful introduction into airline service last October with Singapore Airlines.

With that important, symbolic event passed, and with still only four A380s in service at the time of writing, eight months later, many challenges remain in front of the world’s largest airliner, not least ramping up production and delivery rates. But other challenges, issues and opportunities are in front of this ambitious project, from managing service entry with subsequent early customers like Qantas and Emirates, to how the record high cost of fuel and environmental concerns affect its longer term sales prospects, the timing of developments such as stretched and freighter variants, and lesser technical issues and challenges such as wake vortex turbulence separation standards and developing software upgrades.