Singapore Airlines has today taken delivery of its second Airbus A380 while Star Alliance partner Lufthansa has opened the first part of the A380 maintenance hangar being constructed at Frankfurt Main.
Like the first A380 delivered to SIA in October last year, the second Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered aircraft, MSN005, is configured with 471 seats in three classes.
By the end of last year the first aircraft, MSN003, had logged more than 130 flights and accumulated 950 hours.
Airbus claims that the aircraft has been operating with 100% technical reliability since its introduction and has confirmed expectations over turnaround efficiency.
“More generally, the A380 has been acknowledged as meeting, and often exceeding, the commitments made to its customers in terms of range, fuel burn, noise and cabin comfort,” says the airframer.
SIA’s Star Alliance partner, Lufthansa, will begin taking delivery of the first of its 15 A380s in summer next year. The carrier’s servicing division, Lufthansa Technik, has today opened the first section of its Frankfurt A380 MRO hangar.
The finished part, with an area of 25,000m2 (269,000ft2), already has space to service two A380s or three Boeing 747s. “With this new hangar we are ideally prepared for the first of our A380s,” says Lufthansa chief Wolfgang Mayrhuber.
Once completed in 2015 the hangar, in which Lufthansa is investing €150 million ($220 million), will have capacity for four A380s and will become Europe’s largest aircraft maintenance centre.
Lufthansa Technik says the A380 hangar will be put into immediate use by the German flag-carrier’s long-haul fleet.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: FlightGlobal.com
