Beware of giants

To coincide with the airline’s A380 Downunder debut, Emirates has re-jigged its two daily services into Sydney. The A380 has assumed the non-stop EK412 service between Dubai and Sydney, arriving early in the morning Sydney time and replacing A340-500s three days a week on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, while the remaining four days sees Emirates’s new 777- 200LR also debuted on the route.

But instead of EK412 continuing on to Christchurch as has previously been the case, these higher capacity aircraft now operate to Auckland and return during the day as EK413, before continuing on to Dubai that evening. The A380 will take over the run on a daily basis from May 1 when the airline receives its fifth double-decker.

Meanwhile, the daily EK418 777-300ER service from Dubai to Sydney via Bangkok has been retained, but rather than going on to Auckland, has now assumed the Christchurch leg of the journey, again returning to Sydney as EK419 before continuing on to Bangkok and Dubai in the evening.

Emirates’s first A380 flight, which arrived in Sydney just after 7. 00am, was also an ‘ASPIRE’ environmental demonstration flight, with the aircraft being given priority taxi, climb and airways clearance out of Dubai over the Arabian Gulf, Indian Ocean and across southern Australia, and continuous descent into Sydney by air services providers in the UAE, Oman, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Australia.

The airline says its goal is to make priority routing and dynamic re-routing a regular occurrence on the sector by the middle of 2009, and hopes to realise fuel burn savings of up to 20 per cent over normal routings and flight profiles. However, anecdotal reports from February 2 suggest several other flights, both domestic and internationalwhich were also on descent to Sydney that morning, were held or delayed in order to give the A380 priority on approach, thus realising a questionable overall benefit to the environment.

Emirates has equipped its initial batch of A380s with 489-seats, comprising 14 first, 76 business and 399 economy class seats.

The upstairs cabin is comprised entirely of first and business class, while the main deck is entirely economy class.

With 58 A380s on order, Emirates has indicated that some later build aircraft may have a 517-seat layout for medium haul routes, while the older aircraft may be retrofitted with about 604 seats in a twoclass layout and redeployed on medium and short haul routes throughout Asia and the Middle East (see October ’08 AA).

The inaugural flight to Auckland also saw the first major test of Sydney’s sixth A380 capable gate, Gate 61, while in Auckland that airport’s new international terminal pier which has two A380 capable gates also saw its first major test after a soft opening last October.

“To ensure we are ready and ‘A380 friendly’ we have invested NZ$50m (A$39. 5m) on widening our runway, widening our taxiways and building a new pier at our international terminal for this size aircraft,” Auckland Airport CEO Simon Moutter said on February 2.

“Flying the 380 is a huge buzz,” New Zealand born Captain Wayne Taylor who commanded the Sydney-Auckland-Sydney legs told Australian Aviation. “Flying into New Zealand at any time is very special, and if it’s an inaugural trip, that’s the icing on the cake.

“Getting ourselves and the aircraft set to go went smoothly,” Captain Taylor added.

“There was a general air of excitement amongst our Sydney station staff and engineers who, for several months, have had to wait and watch Singapore and Qantas A380s come and go. They appeared to be very happy to, at last, have their own big toy to play with and show off. ” “The trip across the Tasman was pretty much another day in the office – superb weather, what appeared to be a smooth Tasman sea, and definitely Captain’s weather for arrival into Auckland with a clear sky, a steady 10kt wind straight down the runway, and a pleasant 20 degrees C. ” Captain Taylor added that he was amazed at the interest generated by the first commercial flight into New Zealand of the A380. “Even before arriving in Auckland, there were requests to Auckland ATC from locals as to the whereabouts of the A380, with many wanting the ideal position courtesy of approach radar for a favourable spot in the approach sequence to view the aircraft in all its glory,” he said. “For us, it was a steady descent from our cruise altitude all the way down, over the city and onto the ILS to the ground. The crowds were noticeable at every vantage point along and under the approach path, and the main southern entrance to the airport off the motorway to the south of Auckland was packed! Another big thrill was having the Rescue Fire Service tenders waiting along one of the taxiways to give us the traditional hosing down and having to switch on the wipers to get to the stand. ” Captain Taylor came to the A380 from flying A340s for Emirates, and remarked how similarly the two aircraft handled. “For crew coming off the A330 and 340, particularly those with a reasonable amount of A340-500 time, it is pretty straightforward – it is more or less a CCQ (Cross Crew Qualification) aircraft,” he said. “There are differences of course – the A380 is a quantum leap in technology compared to the A330 and 340, but it retains the Airbus fly-by-wire philosophy which makes the course and conversion pretty straightforward.

The A380 is obviously much easier to find on the apron and takes longer to do the traditional walk around, but when compared to the 340-500, it is pretty much the same from a handling point of view – very smooth and very easy to hand fly.

“The trip on February 2 was a huge buzz for both myself and (Australian) FO Grant Fichera. There was certainly an air of excitement among the whole crew, especially with plenty of Australians and Kiwis making up the cabin crew. And with one from either country on the flightdeck, it was pretty much settled who was doing what sector. The day was, for me, pretty much the highlight of my career. ” Meanwhile, and despite the current economic downturn, Emirates is not backing off on its continuing push into the Australian market. Airline senior VP of commercial operations in East Asia and Australasia, Richard Vaughan, told media attending the inaugural service that the airline’s current 63 flights a week into Australia will grow to 70 by year’s end, and that it still plans to grow to the current maximum allowable of 84 flights by March 2011.

In the meantime, Emirates has also been able to maintain its 2008 load factors of “more than 80 per cent” on its Australian services into the start of 2009.

The arrival of the Emirates A380 into Australia and New Zealand shows the airline casts a giant shadow on the local aviation scene in more ways than one. n