The airport has had to compromise in other ways. Because space is at such a premium, it is converting only two gates at the Tom Bradley International Terminal to serve A380s. To compensate, it is setting up two other gates on the airfield away from the terminal.
"The airlines would prefer not to use these, but it gives us overflow capacity," Mark Massman, deputy executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, said in a telephone interview.
Virgin Atlantic Airways, one of the first buyers of the A380, has cited the restrictions in Los Angeles as one of the reasons it pushed back delivery of its six planes until early 2008.
Massman predicted that Los Angeles would nonetheless be a hub airport for the A380, because it is a gateway for travelers from Asia. But as to the A380s potential for easing congestion, one of the advantages cited by Airbus, he said it would be only a "minor improvement."
It may be little surprise that most American airports seem less enthusiastic about the A380 than their European counterparts. Airbus, after all, is a European pet project -- owned by its military contractors and backed by the leaders of France, the UK, Germany, and Spain.
US airports are limited by tight budgets and aging facilities. At Kennedy, for example, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is spending US$130 million on two mundane projects to accommodate the A380: reinforcing two bridges that carry planes over highways, and shifting a taxiway that rings the terminals. The authority estimates that the A380 will generate US$233 million a year in benefits for the region by 2016 in new jobs and other revenue.
Fraport, the company that owns Frankfurt airport, did not even mention costs in outlining its plan to build 12 A380 gates in two terminals. It also plans a cavernous maintenance building for Lufthansa's 15 super-jumbos. And Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris is building a satellite terminal with six A380 gates.
But the Europeans have nothing on the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai. Its airline, Emirates, ordered 43 A380s, the largest single order, and the home airport is thinking big. Coming in 2008: a US$4.1 billion terminal, with two concourses able to handle 23 A380s. Passengers will board on both the lower and upper decks.
Dubai is not stopping there. Betting that 100 million passengers a year will pass through by 2020, it is building a second airport nearby. "We're building a special airport for the A380," said Rimzie Ismail, the marketing manager for Dubai's civil aviation department.
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