« Airbus A-380 photos at Airliners.net »

Looks like, at long last, &laquo the official rollout of the Airbus A-380 », the world’’s largest commercial aircraft, is finally at hand:

‘Airbus, which has delivered more airplanes than Boeing for the second year in a row, is about to unveil another No. 1: the world’’s largest passenger jet. The A380, a four-aisle, four-engine, double-decker “superjumbo,” will roll onto the tarmac Tuesday at Airbus headquarters in southern France, in a lavish ceremony attended by EU leaders and thousands of guests. Sales have beat expectations so far, and most of the technical problems that have dogged the program have been resolved, at a price. But the real sighs of relief won’‘t be heard in Toulouse until later — sometime before March 31, Airbus says — when the A380 hauls its 280-metric ton (308-ton) frame aloft. That’’s when the plane’’s engineers will begin to find out whether their gargantuan offspring lives up to the performance promises, as the first test-flight data streams in.’

— AP

If it all goes as scheduled and without a hitch, it will be an incredibly impressive technical achievement and will add punctuation to Boeing’’s sad state of affairs.

« Very first pics of the first A380 are up at Airliners.net ».

That is one big-ass airplane. Awesome!

Although it’’s not likely that the Emperor’’s anti-union and anti-worker administration is likely to heed it, «  ” title=”Union Calls for Urgent Meeting on Airlines”>the IAMAW union is calling on the Transportation Department to convene a major meeting regarding the sorry state of the airline industry »

‘The request came in a letter to the transportation secretary, Norman Y. Mineta, from Robert Roach Jr., vice president for transportation at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents more than 100,000 mechanics, baggage handlers and ramp workers at the major airlines. Mr. Roach noted that the department had brought officials together after the terrorist attacks in September 2001 to discuss challenges facing the industry. He called that session helpful but said that the industry had been caught in an unending slump and needed to find solutions. So far this decade, the major airlines have collectively lost $30 billion, five companies have filed for bankruptcy protection, more than 110,000 jobs have been eliminated, and workers pay and benefits have been cut or eliminated. “If we are to have a safe, efficient transportation industry,” Mr. Roach said in the letter, “it is more important than ever that everyone in management, labor and government work toward the common goal of rebuilding the transportation industry for our mutual benefit.” In an interview, Mr. Roach said he was not asking for specific moves by the government, but he said the industry’’s crisis could not continue. “We believe very strongly,” Mr. Roach said, “that the only way to get this problem resolved is to put everyone in the industry together and think about what comes next.” A spokesman for the union, Joseph Tiberi, said it had not received an answer from Mr. Mineta.’

— NY Times

And good luck on getting an answer from anyone in the great American fascist imperial administration, dude. But hey. We’‘re pulling for ya.