The Airbus A380 was once praised by aviation fans and aviation experts. Superlative adjectives such as “giant of the air”, “superjumbo” or “miracle bird” followed each other. No wonder the A380 is a record jet. With a capacity of 853 passengers, the aircraft is the world’s largest and at the same time the quietest aircraft for passengers. It is so quiet that the pilots now hear the noise of the passengers instead of the constant hum of the engines and therefore cannot sleep well.
But then the corona epidemic came and suddenly the end of the A380 seemed to be sealed. Industry giants such as Qatar Airways boss Akbar Al Baker settled accounts with the Airbus type in the summer of 2021. “Buying the A380 was the biggest mistake we’ve ever made,” he complained in an interview, explaining: “We grounded the A380 because it was not a very fuel efficient aircraft.” Return? It looked impossible. And yet, a year later, everything is different again.
Cracks in the wing
The discarded A380 fleet was revived last winter, and not just at Qatar Airways. British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and Korean Air also brought back the super jumbo. Emirates remains the airline with the most super jumbos in operation. But there are new problems there.
Emirates technicians have discovered cracks in the wing struts of older A380 models. The wing mast is the supporting component of an aircraft wing, that is, the wing. Four machines are currently on the ground, as reported by “Aviation Week”.
More issues found
“Airbus has sent around 60 engineers to Dubai to deal with the problem,” Emirates President Tim Clark told the industry portal. “Airbus is in the process of fixing everything. We need to rearrange the bars in various areas.” The job should take approximately one week per plane.
Should airline passengers be worried? “Right now it’s not a security issue, we’re a long way from that,” Clark said. Nevertheless, Emirates has announced an additional inspection program for the wing pillars.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) identified more problems when the A380 aircraft became operational again. In some tests, the seams of the escape latches were opened. Therefore, in mid-November, the authority decided that some of the drain slides manufactured by Collins that had been in storage for more than 185 days needed to be replaced.