Emirates suspends Airbus A380 flights – electrical malfunction or shower problems?

Electric fault, as the airline says, or mile-high-shower messing with avionics panel?

The Emirates A380

Seems the big bad mama of the skies has a problem. An electric problem has seen Emirates, the biggest buyer of Airbus A380 planes, has suspended flights of the so-called Superjumbo.

Emirates Airline, a subsidiary of the Emirates Group based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has announced that the engineers are working on an electrical fault in the Airbus A380 Superjumbo.The airline had launched a non-stop service with the Airbus A380 between Dubai and New York on August 1, 2008.

Emirates Airline is the largest customer of the Airbus A380 Superjumbo, with a total of 58 on order.
The British newspaper Telegraph quoted a spokesman of Emirates Airline as saying that “the planned engineering work was taking longer than expected” and that the fault “was noticed at the end of a training mission.”

The mile-high shower of Emirates A380 might be acting funny

Emirates, meanwhile, denied widespread rumours on the internet forums of air travel websites that the problems with the Superjumbo jets were linked to bathrooms in the Superjumbo’s first class.

Photo: Emirates bathroom. See the shower?

What rumors? The water heater for the showers in bathrooms burnt out an avionics panel, is what the rumors on the internets say. The Emirates Airbus A380 is the first carrier to offer a mile-high shower to those rich passengers who can’t be bothered to take a shower before they leave for the airport.

The mile-high shower in the Emirates Airbus A380 had attracted criticism from environmental groups, as the plane would have to carry an extra 2000 pounds of water – the weight of around 12 passengers. Not exactly environment-friendly, considering the water wasted and extra fuel burned to lift all that water for the dirty passengers.

YouTube – Emirates A380 showers and lounge.

Its not like its any real luxury either. Its a 5-minute shower, as the dirty passenger has washed himself halfway down, an alarm would sound informing him of the impending end of water-supply. Emirates never explained what would happen if the passenger had not washed the soap off totally. We know there is a bathroom sink, but still…

Photo: Babe after washing the dirt away

Till flights of flights Airbus A380 are scheduled to resume on September 12, 2008, Boeing 777-300ER jets would fly on the Dubai-New York route, Emirates said in a statement. Not exactly what passengers who had an Airbus A380 trip in mind.

When the Dubai-New York flight is resumed, it will be a twice-a-week service to New York, rather than thrice-a-week, in order to permit training flights and completion of engineering work.

Doin' it in style: Photo courtesy Wired.com

The double-deck, wide-bodied, four-engine Airbus A380, nicknamed Superjumbo, is the largest passenger airliner in the world. The A380 made its maiden flight on April 27, 2005, from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on October 25, 2007, from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines.

The European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), is the world’s biggest maker of commercial aircraft.

Delivery of Airbus A380 jets to airlines including Emirates Airline, Singapore Airlines and Qantas Airways has been hit by a series of delays.

Emirates got its first A380 Superjumbo in late July 2008, though it was initially scheduled for delivery in October 2007.

Emirates has ordered 58 A380 Superjumbo planes for a total list price of 18.8 billion euros.
Singapore Airlines, which was the first airline, in 2007, to receive the A380, now has 5 of them in operation. Twice in 2008, Singapore Airlines had grounded an A380 jet because of problems in the fuel pump.

Qantas Airways, the national airline of Australia, will become the next airline to receive an A380 jet, on September 19, 2008. Qantas’ first commercial flight with A380 will be on October 20, 2008, flying from Melbourne in Australia to Los Angeles in the United States.