EM ES & Beyond

Airbus has officially handed over the first A380 to Singapore Airlines in a ceremony held at its Delivery Centre Toulouse, France. The aircraft was officially handed over to Chew Choon Seng, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Singapore Airlines by Airbus President and Chief Executive Officer in presence of Chief Executive Officer Rolls-Royce Sir John Rose. Singapore Airlines will be the first to fly the A380 on regular scheduled service says Airbus. Some admits this a big blow to the rival Boeing, as their rivalry for wide-bodied aircraft’s with Airbus is practically challenged with the newly delivered Airbus A380 to Singapore Airlines.

Is it any greener?

SA boasts Singapore’s A380 is powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, which generate 72,000 lbs thrust each. These engines they say, greatly contribute to the A380’s environmental friendliness. The company swaggers the results of the A380; setting new environmental benchmarks in world aviation. They say the A380 has an unmatched fuel efficiency of less than three litres per passenger per 100 kilometres.

The question is, in a time the world seems so concerned about the ‘green practices’ virtually in every human act or the ‘ethical’ business practices as corporate world aloud and determined they say to achieve, how far Rolls-Royce fuel efficient eco friendly engines would contribute to minimize the negative impacts from air travel to the delicate environment?

UNWTO’s Tourism 2020 Vision forecasts that international arrivals are expected to reach nearly 1.6 billion by the year 2020. Of these worldwide arrivals in 2020, 1.2 billion will be intraregional and 378 million will be long-haul travellers. If this forecast remain achievable, it is needless to argue about the additional demands that would create to the aviation industry as presumably most will choose airlines as a mean to fly from one destination to the other.

It is believed that to-date total orders for the A380 are 189 from 16 customers that also include Emirates Airline. And there is all good reasons to believe Airbus will produce more of these giant flying ships in the years to come as the thrive for people to travel is more than anytime in the history of mankind.