‘Last dinosaur’ coming to America

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, March 11, 2007

Next week, Airbus will fly two of its A380 superjumbo jets to the United States to fulfill part of the plane’s commercial route-proving requirements. As a story out this week notes (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17553755/site/newsweek/), Airbus still has a long ways to go in winning the hearts and minds of the industry when it comes to the A380.

On Monday, March 19, the European plane maker will bring its new jet to both the East and West coasts of the United States. About 500 passengers will be aboard each A380 as the planes land at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and at Los Angeles International Airport in California. The superjumbo jet will also make stops in Chicago, Washington D.C., Hong Kong and Munich during its exercise.

But the U.S. tour isn’t likely to rally much support at home for the A380, suggests the Newsweek report. An ocean away, Airbus workers are quite in tune with the work Boeing has been doing on its new, fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner, made mostly of composite materials. A former Airbus engineer described the A380 as “the last dinosaur of the aluminum age.”