Indeed, the A has not worked out as well as hoped for many airlines, and the slowdown in has not helped that. But it remains a great aircraft and a great engineering achievement. And with orders, the largest commercial aircraft ever offered has been far from a failure. This article takes a look back at the history of the A to date. We focus on the concept, development, and potential of the aircraft, and how it has worked well for some airlines but not so well for others.
We will also consider its future amidst a difficult secondhand market. The concept of the A goes back to the s and, unsurprisingly, starts with the Boeing The iconic Jumbo Jet was a great success for Boeing and was its highest-selling widebody until the took over in It changed aviation in many ways.
Its higher capacity led to shifts in airline economics and lower airfares. And the extra onboard space was used for more luxurious cabin space and new classes of service. The other leading manufacturers at the time, Lockheed Martin and McDonnell-Douglas, focussed on single deck and three engine developments.
It was Airbus that decided to take on Boeing and launch a competitor to the Airbus formed in , with several European manufacturers coming together to compete against the larger US companies. Its initial A competing with the Boeing sold well, and soon it had the ambition, and track record, to go further. It designed a twin-engine and four-engine aircraft together, bringing them to market faster and more cost-effectively than launching two separate aircraft.
But it also wanted to go big and take on Boeing with a high capacity aircraft. Plans for this began early in the s. Airbus looked at several different concepts, eventually settling on a full two-deck, known at the start as the A3XX.
Interestingly, Boeing had also looked at this concept for the but failed to make it work for emergency exit and evacuation requirements. The A was not just designed to be bigger than the Airbus believed in the idea of creating high capacity aircraft for hub based travel. This would be of interest for airlines with hub and spoke based operations, with flights connecting in hubs and carrying high numbers of passengers on key routes.
It would also help with growing congestion at airports , allowing airlines to carry more passengers using one valuable slot. We know, of course, now that this was not the best strategy. Boeing at the time was moving forward with the lower capacity , an aircraft that would appeal much more for point to point operations.
But Airbus was not alone in thinking high capacity aircraft would be popular. Several other manufacturers looked at such development around the same time, but only Airbus went on to design and construction. Simple Flying took a look at these in more detail previously. They include:. At its outset, there was more on offer than just the passenger version we know today.
Airbus offered a freighter version, which could have been a great opportunity to grow in the Boeing-dominated freighter market. However, it was never developed. The A was also designed with larger versions in mind. A larger version was proposed at launch. Airbus would stretch the fuselage and offer an increased capacity of around There was limited interest and crucially no orders , though.
Nor was there when Airbus tried several times again to offer something larger. The A was launched at a ceremony in Toulouse in January It made its first flight in April and received certification in December Early problems crept in, though. Customer delivery was planned from the end of , but there were growing delays. Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first A in October Emirates followed it , but not until August These delays were costly for Airbus and the A program. And both the CEO and A program manager were replaced over it.
It also was a major factor in the failure of the freighter. As Airbus prioritized the troubled passenger aircraft, freighter customers lost interest. Nevertheless, it was delivered and was a great achievement.
Airbus succeeded where several other manufacturers had failed and built the largest commercial aircraft to date. Putting up a plane that could compete with or even dethrone the Boeing was therefore an issue of pride for many in Europe.
In , these companies announced that they were moving ahead with their UHCA project and a few years later, in , Boeing and several European aerospace companies began a preliminary study of a combined effort to build a Very Large Commercial Transport VLCT. Before long, however, Boeing started to voice concerns about the viability of UHCAs in the long term.
In an uncharacteristic moment of frankness between rivals in a fiercely competitive multi-billion dollar industry, Boeing all but warned these companies that the market for UHCAs had come and gone, strongly hinting to their rival that they could effectively rule out an aircraft seats or larger ever being profitable. For whatever reason, whether as a matter of pride or a matter of distrust in its rival, the European aerospace companies involved, which would later be absorbed into Airbus, said they would go it alone and build the VLCT aircraft on their own.
Designating it the A3XX, over the next several years these companies would work together to outdo the in every way they could, from technical achievement to the scope of its luxury amenities, eventually consolidating into the pan-European firm Airbus in the year Then, the plane began to run into trouble. In June , Airbus told customers that there would be a delay because of a wiring problem.
The aircraft needed further reinforcing on the wings that added 30 kg to the plane. Ten days later on October 25, the first commercial flight of the aircraft flew from Singapore to Sydney, Australia, with all the seats on board being purchased at an auction for charity. After nearly 20 years of planning and development, the Airbus A was finally in the air and Boeing's was dethroned as the largest commercial passenger aircraft in service.
In the 14 years that it's been in service, around million people have flown in the Airbus A and by all reports, to fly on an A is a throwback to the early days of the , when this thing called commercial air travel was still new and exciting. Flying on an Airbus A is itself part of the experience and not just the thing that got you to where you were going in order to have those experiences. A final assembly takes place in Toulouse, France, with interior fitment in Hamburg, Germany.
Major A part assemblies are transported to Toulouse by ship, barge and road. The first two As pass each other at Sydney Airport. An Air France A in flight. This was using Rolls-Royce Trent engines. June Customers for the A were advised to expect a 6-month delay due to wiring problems. Further strengthening was added which increased the weight by 30Kg.
The requirement is for this to be achieved in under 90 seconds. All seats were auctioned off for charity. We welcome your comment below, is there more we could be showing or are there topics you would like to see? Thank you. I thank you for your comment and hope that our other pages interest your as well, thank you for stopping by.
Livinig in Sydneyu we were fortunate to have one of the first services of the A on the Singapore to Sydney route. It seems now that the age of the Superjumbo and the Jumbo are possibly going to come to a close or at least be less significant than was first predicted. With advances in engine technology, these twin engined giants are achieving ETOPS certification to allow them to fly anywhere on the globe at much lower costs.
Thanks for stopping by Peter. I shared your newest post on twitter and got a lot of positive feedback. Hi Hungs and thank you for your feedback. We appreciate our readers giving us feedback.
0コメント