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BA buys 19 double-deck superjumbos
By Robert Lea, London Lite Last updated at 14:01pm on 27.09.07
Coming soon: the Airbus A380 will be a common sight over west London
Superjumbo planes will become a regular sight over west London after British Airways announced today it is buying up to 19 of the double-deck Airbus A380 aircraft.
BA said it will transform flight patterns into Heathrow with the £6.9bn acquisition of a new fleet of 555-seater A380s. It is also buying up to 42 of the new 250-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliners, believed to be the most fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly aircraft in the world.
The new aircraft will hasten the retirement of BA's ageing fleet of Boeing 747s, both noisier and greedier for fuel than the new generation of jets. They will come into service in 2012.
BA immediately moved to stem the fears of environmentalists camped at Heathrow and residents near the airport by insisting that despite the size of the A380, it will improve the airline's "green footprint".
Chief executive Willie Walsh said: "These aircraft are the gold standard in environmental performance. They are way more fuel-efficient. Airbus has done an extraordinary job because despite its size the A380 makes a quarter of the noise of a Boeing 747-400 jumbo."
The orders are also good news for British jobs. The wings of the A380 are made in north Wales while thousands of jobs are likely to be secured by BA's decision to power all its new fleet with engines made in Derby by Rolls-Royce. Rolls said the orders could be worth up to £2.5bn.
The new superjumbos are likely to be deployed on BA's ultra-long-haul routes to Singapore and Hong Kong and to the US west coast - but probably not to New York as BA focuses on frequency on that route.
Two years late and over budget by billions of euros, the A380 makes its inaugural commercial flight for Singapore Airlines this month and will come to London next year.
Reader views (3)
Airport congestion is driven by passenger demand for flights rather than aircraft size, as demonstrated by some of today's check in queues.
Even though the A380 can carry more people, the clever cabin design means that actual boarding and turnaround times are the same as today's 747s.
Carrying more passengers with fewer flights makes more efficient use of limited flight slots so the A380 could reduce aircraft congestion at busy airports.
And thanks to British built wings the A380 can take off and land on shorter runways than other large aircraft flying today, and because it is also the quietest and most fuel efficient, it is better for the environment and for anyone living in close proximity to airports.
- Justin Dubon, London, UK
Ugly big beasts, but let's celebrate the success of this major European innovation and all the thousands of jobs it will create all over our continent!
- Marianne, SW France
How long will the queue be to board these A380's and how much time will be needed to check-in etc?
I am concerned that they will be a target for terrorism.
- P.Robinson, Northants
