Qantas Airways became the third airline to add an Airbus A380 to its fleet when its first super jumbo aircraft landed at Sydney airport yesterday, two years behind schedule.
The giant aircraft carrying 70 Qantas and Airbus staff plus journalists was welcomed at Sydney Airport by hundreds of applauding well-wishers after a 21-hour flight from the factory in Toulouse in France via Singapore.
The Airbus, which has a 525-seat capacity but which Qantas has configured to carry 450 passengers, will make its inaugural commercial flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles on Oct. 20, Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said in a statement.
PHOTO: AP
On board the delivery flight, Captain Peter Probert, whose father brought the first Boeing 747 jumbo to Australia in 1971, told passengers the flight had been a career highlight.
“It’s one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in my life flying the Qantas A380 down to Sydney,” he said.
Before touchdown, the aircraft flew circuits over some of Sydney’s iconic landmarks, including the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House.
The airliner was originally scheduled for delivery to Qantas in July 2006.
But a series of missteps, technical setbacks, communication failures and financial improprieties that have delayed the roll out.
During the official handover in France on Friday, Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said that his airline was considering increasing its current order from 20.
He did not say how many more planes he wanted.
Qantas is scheduled to receive three this year.
The A380 model has been in service since Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first of the double-decker A380 planes late last year.
Singapore Airlines operates five of the 19 planes it ordered on long-haul routes to Asia, Australia and Europe.
Last month, Dubai-based Emirates Airlines took delivery of the first of the 58 Airbuses it has ordered.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS