Airbus A380, the world’s largest civilian airliner will make first flight to North America today taking off from Germany’s Frankfurt and France’s Toulouse.
The A380 will be the biggest passenger plane in the skies, with a wingspan of almost 262 feet, nearly the size of a football field. Moreover, the height of the double-deck super jumbo jet is more than 79 feet, equivalent to an eight-story building.
There will be 550 people onboard, including 4 pilots, 4 Airbus crew members, 23 Lufthansa cabin crew and 519 passengers, mostly Airbus and Lufthansa employees. The flight will operate as a commercial one, with full dining and entertainment services and will provide new levels of in-flight comfort to passengers.
The A380 burns about one gallon of gas per passenger every 80 miles and can fly some 8,000 nautical miles.
On March 20, Lufthansa and Airbus will operate a demonstration flight to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport before returning to New York and then to Frankfurt.
It will head back to Hong Kong and before continuing its journey to Dulles International Airport on March 25, with a final stop at Lufthansa’s Munich hub March 28 to complete the series of optimization flights.
Lufthansa’s goal is to match the A380’s turnaround time from landing to takeoff with that of much smaller long-haul jets already in operation.
Source: MSNBC
