Today we are going to talk about the massive Double Decker aircraft known by the name of Airbus A380. The Airbus A380 is widely talked about super-sized jet in the world, despite the fact that this aircraft has only been debuted back in 2012.
However, in that short period of time, this aircraft has gained its supply order from some of the following big names in air travel.
- Emirates
- Singapore Airlines
- Lufthansa
Today we have decided to present you some of the lesser known cool facts about the Airbus A380. Even if you already knew about this aircraft, you will be surprised to read them.
It costs a butt load of money:-
For those airlines that are willing to include this massive aircraft in their fleet; they must be ready for spending a huge sum of money. According to the statistical report of all the Airbus A380 sold over the years, the average price of this aircraft comes to be about 445 million dollars. What’s more surprising is that even with this huge of a price tag, nearly 226 units of this aircraft have been sold.
Largest Passenger Airliner:-
The Airbus A380 boasts a spacious usable space of 550 square meters, making it the world’s largest passenger airliner. The fact that will surprise the reader is that it is nearly 40 percent larger than the second largest passenger airliner in the world. The spacious usable space of this aircraft has been one of the primary reasons that it was sold so widely. The aircraft at a time is able to carry around 853 passengers.
It’s not big but fast too:-
With this much huge of size, many would think that it would be slow in flying. This is where all of you are wrong. Even with its massive body, the aircraft I able to have a cruising speed of Mach 0.85. the speed is an average of all the Airbus A380 variants. For perspective, this is nearly 560 mph.
An Engine Fit for such a Giant:-
Now let’s talk about some power. Airbus A380 has two different engines incorporated in its different model. The first one if the Rolls Royce Trend 900 engine. This state of the art engine provides the aircraft with enough power to give it a necessary lift. The other engine in Airbus A380 is the Engine Alliance GP7000, which if not equally as powerful as the Rolls Royce one still gets the job done perfectly.
Fuel Efficient:-
While it’s big, it is not an aircraft that can be called a Gas guzzler. Lufthansa calculated the statistics for their A380s fuel consumption per passenger which turned out to be 69 miles per gallon. The aircraft is able to hold in a shocking amount of 81890 gallons of fuel in its fuel tanks. With this much fuel on its takeoff, the third of aircraft’s weight is actually fuel on takeoff which is roughly 560 tons.
Airport Exclusive:-
The Airbus A380 is only operated at about 20 of the world’s entire airports, which means that only the airport with following features can accommodate this Giant of the Skies.
- long enough runways
- wide enough taxiways
- 78,000 square feet boarding gate where the plane can be parked
21 Flight Attendants serve on this Giant:-
At full passenger capacity, an Airbus A380 requires the service of 21 flight attendants that work in the aircraft’s five galleys. Each of these flight attendants is given their individual computer systems which are dedicated to their cabin duties. For the flight attendants, they have their own resting compartments located below the galleys which are at the rear of the aircraft. These compartments come with 8 beds.
Airbus Plans To Stop Production Of A380 Superjumbo Jet
Airbus, the European Aerospace company has announced in a statement on Thursday, February 14th, 2019 that they are going to stop the production of the Airbus A380. This decision came after the biggest customer of this superjumbo jet; the Emirates Airlines canceled their order for 39 of these aircraft.
Tom Enders; the CEO of the Airbus, said in a statement on Thursday last week, Airbus now has no capacity to sustain the Airbus A380 project despite our efforts to project sales of this aircraft with airlines over the years. he further added to his statement, “Today’s announcement is painful”.
The last of the Airbus A380 will be delivered to Emirates by 2021.
Airbus invested about 15 billion dollars in this project as they were trying to compete and overtake the Aerospace market from their biggest competitor; the Boeing 747. Airbus, at one time, claimed their luxury plane the one that can rival any of the seven wonders of the world.
Although the start of the sale for this aircraft was strong, in later years, the company had to struggle really hard to sell their prized jewel. The aircraft was a behemoth, not only when it came to size but in price as well. A single A380 could cost about 446 million dollars. The reason that Airbus struggled with the A380’s sale was that the majority of airlines prefer small aircraft that are much more economical to operate.
While the Airbus A380’s production is planned to stop, the Emirates has still struck a deal of 21.5 billion dollars with Airbus.
Chairman and CEO of Emirate Airlines; Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said in a statement, “although the Airbus A380 is going to be the pillar of our fleet until 2030, we are reducing its order. Emirates has instead decided to opt for smaller aircraft.”
At its launch, Airbus expected to sell nearly 1200 units of A380 but has instead sold nearly 234 units. Even to this date, no US airline has ever ordered a single Airbus A380. Emirates is the only able to fly this aircraft because of their long haul International flights from its hub in Dubai. This makes it easy for Emirates to fly their A380s due to carrying a large number of passengers.
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