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Airbus A380: Emirates wrecks the first copy of its flagship
Red carpet for the first A380, which was delivered to major customer Emirates at the end of July 2008. Now the aircraft is being dismantled into its component parts.
© Till Bartels
After only 13 years, it’s over: in July 2008, the first giant Airbus was handed over to the Dubai-based airline in an elaborate ceremony. Now the decommissioned Airbus A380 with the identification A6-EDA is being dismantled.
It was a bright summer’s day when the white painted Airbus A380 with the golden lettering of Emirates was towed in front of the Jürgen Thomas delivery center in Hamburg-Finkenwerder on July 28, 2008. Many celebrities had come for a special premiere. Even Boris Becker had come. Singapore Airlines had already received the first A380 as its first customer in Toulouse in October 2007, but no other airline had ordered as many of this new type of aircraft as Emirates.
In their speeches, Airbus President Tom Endes and Tim Clark, the head of Emirates, celebrated the double-decker aircraft, whose special interior design with on-board bar in the rear of the upper deck and showers for First Class guests caused a sensation worldwide.
Even then, the airline from Dubai had ordered 58 jets. The A380 with the registration A6-EDA, which was already used on August 1st on its first scheduled flight from Dubai to New York, was just the beginning. Later, the order books at Airbus were filled with options for a further 104 units, some of which were, however, reduced again.
In the meantime, 118 Airbus A380s have been delivered to Emirates, the last to follow in November and December 2021. Then A380 production will be over for good – forever.
Click through the photo gallery from the 2008 handover
The first Airbus A380 for Emirates: showering above the clouds
23 images
The irony of the A380 story
While the airline is still waiting for the last new additions, 95 A380s of the Emirates fleet are unused on the ground and are parked on the edge of the airports Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Dubai-World Central International (DWC) with sealed engines. The pandemic has thwarted the airline’s growth plans and the Dubai hub in global air traffic.
When the grounding began, Emirates had already used the oldest A380 as a spare parts store. Now it became known that the very first copy with the identification A6-EDA will be completely cannibalized – or to put it more elegantly – “flooded out” and “recycled”.
The last time the machine was in use was on March 8, 2020 on the flight from Singapore to Dubai, the last of a total of 6319 flights. Then came the pandemic. 11.5 years of operation is not an age for a long-haul aircraft. But, contrary to all hopes, a second-hand market for the Airbus A380 with its four engines had never developed at the start of production even before Corona.
Emirates has signed a “deconstruction process” contract with Dubai-based Falcon Aircraft Recycling. This is intended to “drastically reduce the environmental impact and considerably reduce the amount of waste on the landfills”. Around 190 tons of various metals, plastics, carbon fiber composites and other materials have to be removed from the aircraft and recycled.
The highlight for passengers and A380 fans: The on-board bar and some cabin elements are to be redesigned into tailor-made pieces of furniture that will go on sale as souvenirs in the next few months.
Also read:
– Emirates sends its first Airbus A380 to the old age
– Exclusively for the Airbus A380: visit to the largest luxury terminal in the world
– First Class in a giant Airbus: This is how much luxury there is in the hundredth Airbus A380 from Emirates