Visit Caps Weeklong Proving Run
Call it "Rock Star: Superjumbo." In what some have termed the
most eagerly anticipated visit by a commercial airliner since the
US debut of the Concorde SST nearly 40 years ago, the Airbus A380
returned to US shores Sunday night with a brief stopover at
Washington Dulles International Airport.
"It's kind of like a rock star -- everybody wants to see it and
have a piece of it," Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell told The
Washington Times.
The 24-hour visit was the last stop in the weeklong promotional
and testing tour, which began March 19 in New York and Los Angeles,
and later Chicago. Throngs of planespotters, aircraft enthusiasts
and curious bystanders turned out for each visit, even for the
fairly late (2200 EDT) arrival Sunday night in DC. The plane was
scheduled to leave for Germany Monday evening.
The official purpose of the A380's visits to the US was to test
airport capacity and ground handling requirements for the massive
airliner, in anticipation of the plane entering service by the end
of this year. To that end, the Lufthansa A380 that visited JFK and
Dulles even carried a full load of volunteer "passengers," most of
whom work for Airbus or the German carrier, to test airport luggage
handling requirements, and loading and deplaning operations.
"It’s not so much of a test; it is more of a
verification," McConnell told The DC Examiner. "We want to do this
in an environment at a real airport with real passengers. We expect
it to be exciting yet uneventful."
Perhaps more importantly, however, the A380's flights to the US
also served as validation -- not simply for the delay-prone A380
program, but also for Airbus itself.
As ANN reported, Airbus is
now undergoing a drastic restructuring program, that includes the
loss of 10,000 jobs at Airbus plants throughout Europe... due in
large part to the financial hit the planemaker has
taken due to the nearly two-year delay in getting A380s into
customers' hands.
"This is the thing we've always looked forward to -- it's really
doggone exciting to have this airplane come to town," McConnell
said.
The A380 also flew a series of demonstration flights around each
of the airports it visited, with airport officials, curious
lawmakers, and airline representatives onboard. Airbus hopes that
seeing the A380 in operation -- if only on a demo basis at the
moment -- may convince US airlines such as Northwest and United to
order the airliner.
The first A380 is due to be delivered to Singapore Airlines this
fall.