The Airbus A380, the world's newest airliner, swooped to earth in Australia Tuesday as part of an around-the-world safety trial, as its makers said it was on track for its first delivery next year.
The largest jet on earth, which has been plagued by delays that have set its first deliveries back two years, is criss-crossing the globe to test its safety before being cleared to fly commercially. The superjumbo arrived in Sydney from South Africa at around 9:00am (2200 GMT) as part of an 18-day trip to 10 airports across the world aimed at testing its operations before Airbus seeks an airworthiness certificate for the A380.
Its journey Down Under was greeted by a fanfare, with hundreds of press and officials of the European Airbus consortium turning out to welcome the double-decker to Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport.
The plane, which flew over the South Pole on its 16-hour trip from Johannesburg, will remain in Sydney for just 27 hours, before taking off on the next leg of its journey to the Canadian city of Vancouver on Wednesday.
It had returned to its home base in Toulouse in France last Friday after a testing tour which took it to Asia, with stop-offs that included Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul.
Under the trial aimed at securing US and European airworthiness clearance, the aircraft must complete more than 150 flight hours, simulating a commercial airline schedule that it would undertake after it is delivered to clients.
The A380, which can carry between 555 and 840 passengers on two decks depending on its configuration, is scheduled to enter service in the second half of next year with Singapore Airlines.
Delays blamed by the company on problems with the cabin wiring have pushed back deliveries of the aircraft by almost two years from the original schedule. But A380 product marketing executive Corrin Higgs said Tuesday that Airbus was confident of meeting its first delivery in October 2007.
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