Today (25 October) is a great day for Singapore and for Airbus, the first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney of the Airbus A380. 150units of the aircraft ordered for a break even number of 400units, will be another Concorde economical disaster? Airbus experts reckon that the A380 will be an economical success in the long term.

The commercial flight only became possible 2 and half years of strict and strenuous testing the specimen model. The unveiling of the test specimen aircraft was held on the 15 January 2005.A giant of 300 tonnes of 24 meters high and of a span of 80 meters capable of transporting 900 passengers on a 15000kms trip. The 18 months delay in the first delivery, caused the shaking up of the organization of Airbus and the holding corporation Eads is the story preceding the launching of the most modern commercial aircraft. 50000 engineers, technicians and workers from 4 European countries ganged together to realize the construction of this incredible wonder made up of 4millions components.

Special airport terminals have been built to accommodate his giant of the air as the A380 is a double decker aircraft. Can you image the movements of 900 passengers in one go?

A number of books have been written on the construction of the A380. Erik Orsenna is one of the authors who gave an interview on the French radio yesterday. Gérard Chambon & Jean Denis Renard published “La grand aventure de l’Airbus A380”. Pierre Sparaco wrote « Airbus la véritable histoire ». Yves Marc has his version of this formidable challenge in ‘A380: le defi’.

Is not battle of Boeing and Airbus to a large extent alike to the race of the Euro and the US dollar in becoming the world’s currency?