[LINK] "We Like Big Jets and We Can Not Lie"

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist has a wonderful piece on the first arrival of the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airline, in Toronto.

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. The largest passenger airliner in the world, the A380 made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname Superjumbo has since become associated with it.

The A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, and its width is equivalent to that of a widebody aircraft. This allows for a cabin with 50% more floor space than the next-largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400, and provides seating for 525 people in standard three-class configuration or up to 853 people in all economy class configurations.[7] The A380 is offered in passenger and freighter versions. The A380-800, the passenger model, is the largest passenger airliner in the world, but has a shorter fuselage than the Airbus A340-600, which is Airbus's next-biggest passenger aeroplane. The A380-800F, the freighter model, is offered as one of the largest freight aircraft, with a listed payload capacity exceeded only by the Antonov An-225. The A380-800 has a design range of 15,200 km (8,200 nmi), sufficient to fly from Boston to Hong Kong for example, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruising altitude). It is the first commercial jet capable of using GTL-based fuel.

Operated by the UAE's Emirates Airlines and used on aa new flight to Dubai, apparently the main problem with it is that it isn't making enough flights. Blame the Tories of for this, of course.

"This is the only city in the Americas that Emirates is flying the 380," explained Philips. "We do an awful lot of exporting of manufactured goods, IT goods, many of our architects, our engineers, our legal, our accountants are working in Dubai."

"The only constraint in our growing relationship is probably capacity to work together, so I want to just add our voice to many other voices in convincing the federal government that perhaps we do need more than three flights a week."

When we asked him why he seemed frustrated, Councillor Kyle Rae was more blunt: "They're flying in three times a week, and they want to fly in five times a week. The federal government won't give them permission. There's a six-month delay getting cargo onto this flight. It is an economic engine, it is an important opportunity for international trade, and the federal government—because this is Toronto—is not giving them landing rights. This is interference in the marketplace and it has to stop."

Federal Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy was also in attendance and all smiles, but found fingers pointed at her. Said McCallion: "Madame Minister, [the airport] needs a little more cooperation from the federal government. We are the largest airport in Canada, but other airports get a better deal than we get."

The urgency is rooted in the increasing importance and influence of Dubai on the international scene, especially as it relates to tourism. Formerly a tiny desert community of 183,000 people, the population has ballooned to 1.5 million in only three decades, only 10% of which are now Emiraties. One of the world's most audacious skylines has appeared only relatively recently with the explicit intention of attracting affluent westerners to the "Vegas of the Middle East," where many of the rules of this strict Muslim society are relaxed for the sake of tourism.

The Torontoist post has a huge number of photos of the plane. Go, see.