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Taoyuan stopover added to Airbus A380 promo flight

Local plane spotters will be able to catch a glimpse of the A380 next month, as Airbus SAS, manufacturer of the world's largest aircraft, has included Taiwan in its promotional flight tour, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday.

The company has applied for a promotional landing at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for the superjumbo from June 8 to June 10, a CAA official said.

The A380 will make its debut in India from Monday to Wednesday, then fly to Tokyo via Paris next month.

From Japan it will fly to Sydney and return via Taiwan, incorporating a visit to China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), according to a report by Flightglobal.com that cites Airbus A380 product marketing director Richard Carcaillet.

As the display will not be open to the general public, aviation fans will only be able to get a peek of the plane as it arrives at and departs from the airport.

"We are still evaluating whether to place an order [for the A380] ? the decision is not imminent as there are still many factors to consider before making a decision," China Airlines spokesman Johnson Sun (孫鴻文) said by telephone yesterday.

If there is a demand for the aircraft, its fuel consumption and Taiwan's airport infrastructure are among the factors to be studied, Sun said.

None of the gates at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have the facilities to cope with a double deck plane at present, Sun said.

China Airlines chairman Philip Wei (魏幸雄) said last year that the carrier was mulling an order for either the A380 or Boeing Co's 747-8 to fly busy long-haul flights.

The Boeing 747-8 intercontinental passenger airplane is scheduled to enter service in 2010. The 747-8 can seat 450 passengers in a typical three-class configuration, which is 34 seats more than the Boeing 747-400, currently the largest passenger plane in service.

EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) has no plan to place further aircraft orders in the near term, as it has finished purchasing the aircraft it needs for the next few years, company spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) said.

EVA Airways ordered 12 Boeing 777-300ER and three Boeing 777-200LR passenger jets in 2000 and 2004, which will be delivered by 2009.

In other developments, Wei received a lifetime achievement award from the world-renowned cargo publication Air Cargo News in London last Saturday, China Airlines said yesterday.

The award recognizes Wei's visionary role in the air cargo industry and his exceptional management of China Airlines' cargo operations, the company said in a statement.

He is the first corporate executive from an Asian airline to receive the award.

He has more than 30 years of experience with the airline, and has served in various departments, including finance, passenger marketing, cargo marketing and regional management, the statement said.

Wei served as company president from 2002 to 2005, the statement said.
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