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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.
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