Airbus employees guinea-pig passengers for A380

TOULOUSE – Nearly 500 employees of the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus took off aboard the company’s A380 superjumbo yesterday at the start of a series of trials to test the new plane’s passenger arrangements.

Four flights of between seven and 14 hours will be staged during the week to allow the volunteers to try out the seats, air conditioning, meals and toilets in what is set to be the biggest passenger airliner in the world. The 1 900 employees selected for the test flights were picked at random from 15 000 who applied for the mission from Airbus offices over the world.”These four test flights with real passengers will give us human feedback on life on board this plane which can do distances of up to 15 000 kilometres,” said chief test pilot Jacques Rosay.The first delivery of the A380 will be made in December to Singapore Airlines, six months behind schedule.To date 16 companies have ordered 159 A380s.Nampa-ReutersThe 1 900 employees selected for the test flights were picked at random from 15 000 who applied for the mission from Airbus offices over the world.”These four test flights with real passengers will give us human feedback on life on board this plane which can do distances of up to 15 000 kilometres,” said chief test pilot Jacques Rosay.The first delivery of the A380 will be made in December to Singapore Airlines, six months behind schedule.To date 16 companies have ordered 159 A380s.Nampa-Reuters