Ethiopia: Airbus A380 Arrives On Monday, 4 - 30pm

Ethiopia: Airbus A380 Arrives On Monday, 4 - 30pm
Tamrat G. Giorgis

The world's largest aircraft, the European Airbus A380, will be arriving tomorrow, October 16, at Bole International Airport, at 4:30pm, aviation authorities have confirmed. It will be arriving from Oman.

A380's coming to Addis will be its first appearance in Africa where it is scheduled to be staying for four days to conduct a series of high altitude tests.
"The test flight of this aircraft proves our airport's international competitiveness and its ability to handle a huge and modern aircraft," said a press statement issued by the Ethiopian Airports Enterprise, on Friday.

A380-861 is the largest commercial aircraft the world has ever seen; it has a net weight of 560tn, and can carry up to 400tns as well as 10 to 20tn of fuel. With its double-deck, as high as a seven-storey building, A380 is designed to carry 555 passengers in a three class configuration.

The aircraft, developed by a U.K., Spain, German and France consortium, has 80m by 80m width; it will be landing on the new runway that has 100 load charging net (LCN), according to aviation experts.

The old runway, with its LCN estimated between 75 to 80, will be used as a taxiway to the aircraft during the four-day test flight that will be carried out in the special airspace around the town of Bishoftu (Debre Ziet). This check-air area is reserved for training, test and engineering purposes by aviation authorities.

Reliable sources disclosed that A380, with its 560,000kg net weight, will have several landing and takeoff exercises, thereby generating millions of dollars of revenues in landing fees for the Airports Enterprise which charges per kilogram.

Close to 40 people from different departments related to aviation have been working over the past couple of months to facilitate A380's arrival, sources disclosed. Three members of an advance team from Airbus arrived last week.

The management of Ethiopian Airlines, which has reportedly waived its parking fee for Airbus, has assigned one of its top engineers to help during the testing, while three of its senior pilots are hoping to participate in the exercise that will be conducted with the aircraft filled with water balls to meet the required weight.

It would not be the pilots' first experience with aircraft manufactured by Airbus: they flew previously with A330, A320 and A319, according to a senior pilot who had participated in testing Airbus aircrafts.

Over 40 top executives and chief engineers from Airbus are expected to arrive with the aircraft, which will be accorded an official reception, in the presence of Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, also board chairman of Ethiopian Airlines, sources disclosed.

According to European diplomatic sources, A380 will be departing Addis on Thursday night, October 19, after brief and limited number of visits to the aircraft for invited guests and the media.