Yesterday was a big day for Lufthansa and the Airbus A380. The airline started its first scheduled flight of the A380 to the United States. The flight from Frankfurt to New York’s JFK is the fourth Airbus A380 route for the airline, after Tokyo, Beijing and Johannesburg.
’œIn early 2007, Lufthansa and Airbus jointly landed the first Airbus A380 on U.S. soil, here in New York during a route-proving flight to North America. Now we are returning with scheduled A380 flight operation. New York is one of the most important markets for Lufthansa, so it was imperative for us to launch transatlantic flights on our flagship aircraft to this U.S. gateway,’ said Jens Bischof, Vice President The Americas for Lufthansa. ’œWe are proud to offer New Yorkers the option to experience this amazing aircraft, combined with Lufthansa’s award-winning service, thus taking the flying experience in all three classes to a whole new level,’ Bischof continued.
Although this is the first Lufthansa Airbus A380 flight to the US, this won’t be the last. The airline has already announced their plans to fly from Frankfurt to San Fransisco starting on May 10, 2011. According to ATI and Flight Global, the airline states the recent issues with the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines will not affect the delivery schedule of the A380. The airline plans to increase their A380 fleet to eight by mid-summer.
With increasing the number of A380’s and being the first customer of the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental, Lufthansa is quickly working on having one of the best aircraft fleets in the world.
Currently there aren’t too many Airbus A380 flights to and from the US. Dan Jones with the site Route Watch, walked me through the current flights:
JFK in New York:
Emirates from Dubai (DXB) as UAE201 daily
Lufthansa from Frankfurt (FRA) as DLH400 not daily, only A380-800 on Mon and Fri after March 27
Air France from Paris (CDG) as AFR006 not daily, Tue and Wed are 777-300ER (77W)
Korean to be 3x weekly starting in August going to daily in September as KAL81
LAX in Los Angeles:
Qantas from Sydney (SYD) as QFA11 daily
Singapore starting March 27 will upgrade SIA11 SIN-NRT-LAX to the A380
One Dreamlifter and two Airbus A380's sharing a hangar. (click for larger)
Oh yes! Now this is totally amazing airplane eye candy of the largest scale. One Boeing 747 Dreamlifter (N780BA) parked between not just one, but two Airbus A380’s inside Lufthansa Technik’s Fankfurt hangar. A big tip of the hat to Jon Ostrower on his blog FlightBlogger for sharing this amazing photo (check his blog for more information on the airplanes).
The photoshopped United Airlines Boeing 747-400 in new livery on the left and original photo on the right. Click for larger version.
So, the photo of the Boeing 747-400 in the new United livery I posted last week is a fake. I apologize, since I didn’t know it when I posted it, but does it matter? It is still cool looking. You awesome airline geeks realized it because the engines were wrong. United flies Pratt and Whitney engines and these engines are GE. Nice catch! The creator of the image, Mark B, wrote to me and confirmed that he did in fact used a photo of an Air Canada Boeing 747-400 to make his photo. He also shared two others of an Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner that I wanted to share as well.
What a United Airline Airbus A380 might look like in the new United Livery. Click for larger version.
In the comments of my last United livery post and around the internets I keep seeing people hating on the new United livery. I really dis-liked it too when I first saw it, but it is starting to grow on me. Yes, like most of you I would have rather seen a brand new livery, but I understand why they kept the United name, along with the Continental colors.
Even though I am not in love with the new United livery, I really like it on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Click for larger version.
I think it is odd for us airline geeks to see the Continental colors with the United name. No matter what decisions they would have made, people weren’t going to be happy. Both airlines have amazing histories, something was going to have to be lost for both. I am just looking forward to a United retro livery shown on this Boeing 747-400.
Original Photo Credits:
Boeing 747: Bailey
Airbus A380: FishAir
Boeing 787: Boeing
The group of Aviation Geek Fest geeks in front of a GE90 engine on a brand new Boeing 777. Photo by Boeing.
Last Saturday we had our second annual Aviation Geek Fest hosted at the Future of Flight. 50 aviation lovers showed up to experience something special.
The event started off with a presentation on Boeing’s history from their historian, Mike Lombardi (photo). Mike is such a knowledgeable guy with a true passion for history and aviation. It was great learning more about Boeing’s history and hearing aviation geeks chime in with stories of their own. The cool part was when the geeks were able to ask questions of Mike and test his historical skills. I am guessing that Mike easily made 50 new friends on Saturday.
After getting pumped up, it was time to move to the Boeing auditorium for a short video on Boeing and their airplanes (photo). Then it was on to a Boeing bus to check out the factory (photo). Everyday Boeing offers tours of their factory, but this one was different — we got to walk on the factory floor with the planes versus seeing them from the balcony.
That's me in front of my new favorite plane, the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental at the Boeing Factory. Click for larger.
I was excited since I have never had this experience. Before we could go gazing at all the beautiful new aircraft, we had to put on safety glasses and get a safety briefing (photo). There were a lot of things for us to trip on and it would easy to become distracted.
Then the real fun started. We were able to get close and personal with some Boeing 777’s, 787’s and of course the brand new Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. Normally no cameras are allowed on the factory tour, but Boeing was pulling out all the stops. David Reese, who works for Boeing, agreed to take photos of our VIP factory tour that we would be allowed to use. This was great since we had to give up all our electronic devices, which is not easy to do. Many of us aviation geeks are also technology geeks and not being able to take photos or Tweet is difficult. However, it was nice to just enjoy the experience and not worry about taking all the right photos.
I have been on the tarmac close to airplanes before, but this was different. There was something special being so close to Boeing aircraft that have never flown before. They were clean, fresh, air virgins that were getting ready to take flight.
Getting close and personal to a new Boeing 747-8 Freighter on the Boeing factory floor. Click for larger.
Although seeing some Boeing 787’s up close from the factory floor was pretty sweet, my favorite part of the tour was the new Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. The 747-8 Freighter has already taken flight, but this is the first Intercontinental and it looked good… it looked damn good.
Before our tour, I wondered if seeing that extended upper deck would be obvious in person and it very much is. No one should have trouble telling the difference between the Boeing 747-400 and the 747-8I.
After checking out the new 747, we were able to check out a Boeing 777 still in two large pieces (photo). It was surreal to take a close look at a flight deck with almost no one in it. We also got to take a look at the Boeing 787 Dreamliner static test bed, which has been putting the 787 to the test for quite some time now (photo).
It was definitely hard to get everyone back on the bus. I am sure most of us could have stayed for hours, maybe even forever. Even though it was time to head back to the Future of Flight we had one last Boeing treat — a drive down the flight line. We got a close look at a bunch of Boeing 787’s, 777’s and 747-8F (photo).
When we arrived back to the Future of Flight, we had the opportunity to check out a demonstration by Laser Motive who have created a way to send a power charge through a laser. They had a helicopter that was flying based on the charge from the laser. It was nice sitting down to some pizza and beer and talk with them about how this technology can be used in the future.
It was very nice seeing the planes, but even better being able to talk about aviation with fellow geeks. I can’t wait until next year!
Why settle only for an image of an Airbus A380 cockpit? Click to get a full 360 view.
The Airbus A380 is one amazing machine. It is the largest airliner flying today and has a full length top deck. Also impressive if the A380’s cockpit. But why be happy with only a single image? Check out this pretty sweet 360degree view of the A380’s spacious flight deck.
Be sure to notice the A380 in Airbus livery outside and the cockpit screen displaying the tail-cam (notice you can zoom in quite well on the 360 view).
