Qantas Airways gets its first Airbus A380 Superjumbo, more on the way

Qantas Airways, the national airline of Australia, has taken delivery of the first of its Airbus A380 Superjumbo from Toulouse, France.

Qantas was the first airline to order the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft.

Qantas Airways’ Airbus A380 will make its maiden scheduled service on October 20, 2008, when it flies from Melbourne in Australia to Los Angeles in the United States and then on October 24 from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles.

Qantas will later fly the Superjumbo to Singapore and London.

In a statement, Qantas said it expects to receive another 2 Airbus A380 aircraft in 2008 itself and would “compete directly with Singapore Airlines for A380 passengers” on the so-called kangaroo route between Sydney and London from January 16, 2009.

At present, the Qantas group, including the low-cost subsidiary Jetstar Airways, has ordered a total of 110 A380 Superjumbo aircraft directly from Airbus Industrie.

In the fist phase, Qantas has ordered 20 A380 aircraft, second to the 58 jets ordered by Emirates Airline (known as Emirates), a subsidiary of the Emirates Group based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Singapore Airlines has already taken delivery of 5 of the 19 A380 aircraft it ordered.

Qantas was due to receive its first A380 jet nearly two years ago, but the delivery was delayed because of the plane’s major design and production issues, mainly relating to electrical wiring. And, Qantas has received over n $200 million in compensation for the delay, which benefited rival Singapore Airlines.

The Airbus A380 can carry up to 853 people, but Qantas has decided to limit seating to 450 passengers – 14 in individual first class suites, 72 in business class, 32 in premium economy cabin, and 332 in economy class.

The Airbus A380 Superjumbo is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus Industrie. 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 aircraft – which can provides seating for 525 people in standard three-class configuration or up to 853 people in all-economy class configuration – has a design range of 15,200 kilometres (8,200 nautical miles), sufficient to fly, for example, from New York to Hong Kong, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruise altitude).

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the high prices of aviation turbine fuel and other problems, notably a series of mechanical malfunctions plaguing its planes in the recent months, Qantas Airways reported in August 2008 a 44% jump in annual net profit to reach a record Australian $969 million (US $842.6 million).