The world's biggest airliner makes its US debut today when Airbus' A380 superjumbo touches down in New York and Los Angeles, hoping to impress indifferent US airlines.
The 555-seat double-decker passenger plane will fly into Los Angeles International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in near-simultaneous arrivals, as part of route-proving and compatibility tests.
But although the twin arrivals are generating buzz among aviation enthusiasts, with thousands of spectators reportedly expected to turn out in Los Angeles, the reception from US carriers will remain lukewarm, analysts say.
No US airline has placed an order for the superjumbo, which will go into commercial use later this year after a tortuous development period that has seen a string of delays and several canceled orders.
"It's a huge event in the sense that the A380 is the first of its kind and it will be the first time it has been seen here," said Stephen Costley, managing editor of Los Angeles-based aviation journal SpeedNews.
"But most of the interest will be from aviation enthusiasts who want to see it fly," he said.
Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group Corporation, said the first arrival of the A380 was important from a practical standpoint rather than a marketing one.
"It doesn't have an awful lot of relevance for the North American market except in the sense of compatability with North American airports, in which it's crucial, especially LAX," Aboulafia told reporters, referring to Los Angeles.
Aboulafia noted that the two largest US carriers -- Delta and American Airlines -- had shown no interest in placing orders for the A380 so far, and still did not have Boeing 747s in their fleet, currently the world's largest passenger jet.
"Not only do they have no interest, they don't even have 747s at this point," he said. "Delta and American's biggest planes only have 300 seats."
The US airline industry was only just recovering from a protracted slump following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and few airlines were willing to take the plunge by placing orders for the A380, he said.
The vast size of the plane, which has a wingspan almost the length of a football pitch, was ill-suited to the routes favored by most US carriers, analysts said.
"The wave of the future is smaller longer-ranged aircraft," he said.
"[Former American Airlines chairman] Bob Crandall summed it up best when he said `Nobody ever went bankrupt flying a plane that had too few seats,'" Aboulafia said.
Costley said although it was possible US carriers could be adopting a "wait-and-see" approach to the A380, some had indicated that the superjumbo would never find favor.
"I was at a US Airways meeting this week and the word I got from there was that even though you never say never, you will never see an A380 flying in their colors," Costley said.
However Costley said attitudes towards the A380 may change once the superjumbo starts flying regularly into US airports by international carriers.
"In the long-term I expect it to be successful," he said.
The two A380s touching down in the US today will arrive from Europe.
One plane carrying 500 guests will travel from Frankfurt to New York to test commercial routes, while the other plane, carrying only pilots and crew flies into Los Angeles, where it will test airfield maneuvring, docking at terminal gates, and ground services such as refueling, an Airbus statement said.
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