ow will airports accommodate the world's biggest passenger jet?
At Paris' leading Charles de Gaulle airport, where the hulking Airbus A380 landed for the first time on Friday, preparing for its arrival meant enlarging runways and bridges and building a new boarding lounge -- at a cost of US$134 million.
Airports in San Francisco, London, Sydney, Singapore and Frankfurt, Germany are already prepared to receive the 555-seat plane, having also spent millions. Other hubs are following suit, Airbus officials say.
The superjumbo, which starts being delivered to airlines later this year, has been plagued by a series of scandals that have caused shares of Airbus' parent EADS to plunge, wiped billions of dollars off profit forecasts and set back delivery by two years.
"This airplane has created a lot of debate," said Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois after the glitch-free arrival in Paris. "Now we know it is here, it is beautiful, it is excellent."
Plane-spotters bedecked with cameras and telescopes lined roads near the airport to greet the A380's arrival. Two giant water cannons sprayed the plane as it taxied in at the airport, where it will remain for two days of tests before heading to Japan, Australia and Taiwan.
The superjumbo carried its "VIP" passengers -- six Parisian schoolchildren and their teacher -- from Airbus' headquarters in Toulouse.
Charles de Gaulle airport's new passenger lounge, designed to handle up to six A380s at the same time, will be operational by the summer. Each plane will have three jetways, for speedier boarding. The airport has also strengthened its runways and widened its taxiways.
The first deliveries of the A380 are scheduled to be made in October to Singapore Airlines Ltd. Air France-KLM, the first European carrier to fly the plane, is scheduled to take its first delivery in April 2009.
Airbus touts the A380 as quieter than most existing commercial aircraft, with better fuel efficiency and lower emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide per passenger.
On its Web site, Airbus said that as of April it had received 156 orders for the new plane, which is priced at about US$319 million. It has no US carriers as customers.
Los Angeles International Airport, the fifth-busiest airport worldwide, is expected to be the first US destination for the A380 after it enters commercial service.
The city's airports agency is spending more than US$120 million on projects to prepare Los Angeles International and nearby Ontario International airports for the new jets.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”