Delivery!

The much anticipated A380 is finally rolling off the assembly lines and into airline fleets.

The first A380 will be delivered tomorrow to the prouud new owner Singapore Airlines. There is to be a huge party at the Airbus Delivery Center in Toulousse. This monster of a plane will not depart until Tuesday, arriving in Singapore on Wednesday, where it will soon make its first flight from Singapore to Sydney. It will enter dailt service on this route on October 28.

Singapore is not the only airline committed to the A380. The A380 is being seen as the next generation of air travel so naturally its orders have increased. Currently 16 airlines have committed asking Airbus to produce a total of 189 planes. I can't imagine that many double dechers in the air. Not to mention that those numbers average out to be about 12 planes per airline. Can you imagine walking up to a terminal and seeing 12 of these monsters lined up in a row? Each plane is powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines and I probably don't have to tell you that's a ton of power. But even with all that power Airbus claims the A380 is "cleaner, greener, quieter and smarter," and "is already setting new environmental benchmarks in air-transport. Per passenger, the A380 has an unmatched fuel efficiency of less than three litres per 100 kilometres." I guess we'll find out.