Some updates on the production progress of the Airbus A380 superjumbo, courtesy of the A380 production forum.

MSN027 (F-WWSY) the fifth for Qantas (VH-OQE Lawrence Hargrave) came out of the Final Assembly Line (FAL) hangers and made its taxi tests.


MSN029 (F-WWSA) the sixth for Qantas (VH-OQF Charles Kingsford Smith) has been outside since it came out of the FAL in mid February. While inside the FAL, MSN027 and MSN029 had their tails switched. MSN027's tail going on MSN029 and vice versa. During a hail storm last year there was damage to MSN027's tail. To keep the production schedule, the tails were switched and repairs carried out. You will observe the tail on MSN029 (originally MSN027 tail) has been marked in black in some areas.


MSN023 (F-WWST) sixth for Emirates A6-EDF has left the FAL and is now on the flight line. It will make its first engine and taxi runs in early to mid April and also expected to fly in April as well.


MSN017 for Emirates (A6-EDE) will be delivered on 24th April.

Photos 1, 3, 5 courtesy Flickr user A380spotter. Photo 2 courtesy Flickr user Christope Ramos. Photo 4 courtest PictAero user David Barrie. All copyrights rest with them.

Visit the Bangalore Aviation Flickr photo gallery.

Qantas' bad luck with its planes continue. On March 2, Qantas was forced to declare one of its flagship Airbus A380 superjumbos "unserviceable" at London Heathrow.

Despite best efforts and making hundreds of passengers wait over 12 hours, Qantas engineers could not repair a leak in the fuel system.

Qantas was forced to transfer its passengers on to a Boeing 747, after making them wait overnight for QF10 from London Heathrow to Melbourne to depart. The 747 flight finally departed 13 hours late.

This is the second embarrassing incident for Qantas in recent times. Earlier on January 19th, another of Qantas' A380's was grounded at Los Angeles LAX airport.

Admittedly the Qantas A380's are brand spanking new, and may have some occasional issues, but neither of the other two airlines operating the A380, Emirates and Singapore Airlines, are reporting this level of failure.

Hopefully the engineers at Airbus and Qantas can resolve the issues soon.

Qantas announced plans for its new Indian services via Singapore, which will replace the discontinued direct services between the two countries.

From June 2, flight QF51, will fly to Mumbai via Singapore on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The return flight QF52 to Singapore will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Qantas will use its Singapore hub to offer passengers connections to seven Australian cities. Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney flights will be on Qantas, Cairns and Darwin will be on Qantas' low-cost subsidiary Jetstar.

In addition to its Mumbai services, Qantas has a code-share arrangement on Jet Airways flights between Delhi and Mumbai to Singapore.

A passenger on Qantas flight QF032 from London to Singapore, went berserk, on Wednesday, after being caught smoking in the toilet as per news reports from Australia and Singapore.

Believed to be in his 40s, the man set off a smoke alarm in the toilet of the plane. When the Qantas cabin crew tried to restrain him, he ran amok, yelling and kicking walls.

Cabin crew had to bind the burly passenger's hands and tie him to the chair after he managed to break free of their restraints.

He continued to yell and kick the walls during the rest of the QF32 flight to Singapore.

The man was placed in the custody of Singapore police when the flight arrived at Changi Airport earlier this morning.

The One World alliance is celebrating it's tenth anniversary, and its member airlines have unveiled a special livery on their fleets. Hope you will enjoy the images. Click on the images to see the high resolution versions.

American Airlines Boeing 777

British Airways Boeing 747

Japan Airlines Boeing 777

Finnair Airbus A340

Royal Jordanian Airlines Airbus A319

Iberia Airbus A320

LAN Chile Boeing 767

Malev Boeing 737
Cathay Pacific Airbus A340
QANTAS Boeing 747

Oneworld has also announced 10% reduction in airfares, a new Circle Atlantic fare, and a free business class tickets contest.

Qantas' problems on their Airbus A330 fleet just don't seem to end. This time a Qantas A330 aircraft from Auckland to Melbourne was grounded. The reason -- a distressed pet dog escaped from his kennel in the cargo hold, and chewed up the wiring. Must have been a big dog, and extremely distressed to chew through the panel covers to get to the wiring.

As a dog lover, I read this story from the Courier Mail with amusement and a little apprehension. I just hope Qantas does not take punitive actions in transporting pets.

I wonder if the dog owner will or should be made to pay the repair bill ?

As usual your comments are always welcome.

An era came to its end as Australian carrier Qantas retired its last Boeing 747-300.

The fleet of six, which entered service between 1984 and 1987, clocked more than 524,000 flying hours.

Along with the retirement of the fleet, comes another retirement -- flight engineers. Modern airliners with their "glass cockpits" have eliminated the flight engineers' station. Qantas will no longer have need for flight engineers in any of its remaining aircraft's cockpits.

The last serviceable Qantas B747-300 VH-EBW, will depart Sydney today at 1900 local (AEDT) 0800 GMT bound for the jets graveyard in Marana, Arizona, USA, pending sale.

Farewell.

The Aviation Herald is reporting the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issued an updated Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) 2009-0012-E following two incidents involving Qantas Airbus A330 and A340.

These incidents were attributed to Air Data Inertial Reference Unit #1 (ADIRU-1) providing erroneous data. The EAD recognizes additional failure modes, that have been discovered in the meantime.

EAD 2009-0012-E : Navigation – Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) – Operational Procedure, requires flight crews of the Airbus A330 and A340, who experience failures by one of the three ADIRUs on board of their aircraft not to limit their actions to turning off the affected ADIRU off, but to completely de-energize it under all circumstances by selecting the IR mode rotary to OFF.

A first EAD 2008-225-E had been issued on December 18th 2008 following an inflight upset of a Qantas Airbus A330-300 near Learmonth on Oct 7th 2008. During this event a faulty ADIRU-1 had transmitted randomly faulty data producing unjustified stall and overspeed warnings prompting the airplane's systems to pull the airplane into a dive. Disengaging the ADIRU did not stop the faulty ADIRU from transmitting such faulty data. The resulting EAD required the crews to verify, whether the disengagement of the ADIRU was followed by the OFF light to illuminate and in case of this light not appearing to de-energize the ADIRU.

A second incident occured to another Qantas Airbus A330-300 near Perth on December 27th 2008 leading to the disconnection of the autopilot, but without an inflight upset. The emergency directive now suggests, that the crew, following the first version 2008-225-E of the emergency directive received the OFF light for their ADIRU-1, however, the ADIRU-1 still did not disconnect and continued to supply faulty data.

The full Emergency Airworthiness Directive is available here.

A mere 16 months after launching services with the Airbus A380 superjumbo, Singapore Airlines is expecting to fly its one millionth A380 customer in February 2009.

Singapore Airlines was the first airline in the world to fly the Airbus A380 super-jumbo, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, when it began commercial services between Singapore and Sydney in October 2007. The Airline is expecting to welcome its first millionth customer on-board the A380 within the next six weeks, and is planning to surprise the customer and other customers on the flight with a series of goodies, and what a set of goodies it will be.......

The lucky millionth customer will be greeted with the news upon check-in and a special package. Beyond the enhanced in-flight experience, the winner will get to enjoy a host of prizes at the destination, including a three-night stay at a luxury hotel and a chauffeur-driven limousine ride to the hotel, experiences at top-class restaurants as well as a series of other goodies to take away.

The millionth passenger's fellow travellers will also enjoy the occasion with special Singapore Airlines giveaways, and champagne in all three classes. I am confused by this. First and business class passengers are served champagne on-board already. First Class passengers are served their choice of Krug or Dom Perignon, no less.

Singapore Airlines has six aircraft in fleet now, flying daily between Singapore and Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo, and twice daily between Singapore and London. Since its launch, the A380 has clocked over 20,000 flying hours on more than 2000 commercial flights.

In addition to Singapore Airlines, Emirates has four, and Qantas three. With Qantas launching London Heathrow service very soon, the airport will have the distinction of receiving A380 from all the three A380 operators.

On its 15th anniversary, the Airbus A330 is getting a major birthday gift, and from none other, than its major competitor, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Thanks to the 2 year delay on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, airlines who had previously ordered the aircraft, are rushing to fill the gap with the Airbus A330.

Qantas which has placed firm orders for 65 Dreamliners with options for an additional 50, has leased six A330's for its low cost subsidiary JetStar. Ironically, Qantas is funding the lease with compensation it is receiving from Boeing as liquidated damages towards the delay in delivery.

The story is being repeated by other major Dreamliner customers, like Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airways who are rushing A330s in to their fleets to fill the gap.

Two weeks ago, December 30, marked the 15th anniversay of the first A330 to be delivered. In 1993, Airbus delivered the first A330-300 to Air Inter, registered F-GMDB. The aircraft, construction number 037 test registration F-WWKE, is now with Brussels Airlines as OO-SFN accumulating a total of more than 50,000 flight hours.

There are some 250 A30-300s in service today, with more than 130 firmly-ordered aircraft still to be delivered.

A growing proportion of the A330-300 fleet is now employed on extended-distance regional routes, such as those linking Middle East destinations with European capital cities. Similar flight lengths characterise the segments flown between Australia and Asia or from Europe to North America.

In 2009, Singapore Airlines, Etihad, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Aeroflot, Finnair and Swiss will receive delivery.

Update - January 6. It never struck me, when posting the original article, but based on the timings, Kingfisher can offer passengers, connection between Singapore and London via Mumbai. Further, if Kingfisher can streamline its current Bangalore London operations with better slots at Heathrow, it need only one Airbus A330 instead of the current two. It can deploy that aircraft on a Mumbai-Singapore-Sydney route, since Qantas is reportedly withdrawing its Mumbai - Sydney service. An added benefit for Kingfisher will be to offer a complete Kangaroo route.

Original Article - January 4.
Kingfisher Airlines will launch a slew of international services to London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Colombo, through the month of January, starting tomorrow.

Mumbai, India - London Heathrow, United Kingdom
On 5th January, Kingfisher will commence its second international flight, on the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport - London Heathrow sector. Kingfisher's only existing international service is also to London Heathrow, from Bangalore, launched in September 2008.

Kingfisher will deploy its new VT-VJx series Airbus A330-200 aircraft on this route, in a two class configuration. The Kingfisher First features full flat seats with massage, touch-screen controls, full size pillows and merino wool blankets. Both classes features an in-flight entertainment system.

IT7 will depart Mumbai 13:50 and arrive London Heathrow Terminal 4 at 17:55.
IT8 will depart London Heathrow 20:30 and arrive Mumbai at 11:00 the next day.

Mumbai, India - Hong Kong, SAR
Kingfisher has scheduled operations, on the Mumbai - Hong Kong sector, to commence from January 12, 2009, using the Airbus A330-200 VT-VJx series.

IT31 will depart Mumbai 00:15 and arrive Hong Kong at 08:45.
IT32 will depart Hong Kong at 14:00 and arrive Mumbai at 17:30.

Mumbai, India - Singapore
Kingfisher has scheduled operations, on the Mumbai - Singapore sector, to commence from January 16, 2009, using the same Airbus A330-200 VT-VJx series.

IT21 will depart Mumbai 23:40 and arrive Singapore at 07:40 the next day.
IT22 will depart Singapore 09:20 and arrive Mumbai at 12:10.

Bangalore and Chennai, India - Colombo, Sri Lanka
Kingfisher has scheduled operations, on the Bangalore - Colombo and Chennai - Colombo sectors, to commence from January 19, 2009, using the narrow body Airbus A320 aircraft.

IT61 will depart Chennai 07:15 and arrive Colombo at 08:15.
IT62 will depart Colombo 17:30 and arrive Chennai at 18:30.

IT63 will depart Bangalore 15:00 and arrive Colombo at 16:20.
IT64 will depart Colombo 09:15 and arrive Bangalore at 10:30.

With the exception of the Singapore flights, I am concerned at the amount of time, the aircraft are spending at the destinations. Airplanes on the ground, only cost, not earn, money,

For more details visit the Kingfisher Airlines' website. Click here to download the schedules in Excel format.

Congrats to Kingfisher for finally ramping up the international show.

In an incident, that will definitely not please either the airline, or the airframe manufacturer, the world's largest commercial airliner the Airbus A380 superjumbo, operated by Australian carrier Qantas was grounded in Fiji due to a computer glitch.

VH-OQB, the second aircraft in Qantas' A380 fleet, recently delivered, and which commenced operations just one week ago, was on a routine flight QF 12 from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) having departed LAX December 26th. It was forced to divert and make an emergency landing at Nadi in Fiji, in the early hours of Sunday, December 28th, when a passenger fell ill on board.

The landing was reportedly smooth. In fact, Fiji had just reached an agreement that Nadi airport would be used in emergency situations by the A380, and the Fijian aviation authorities hailed the landing. Many Fijians rushed to the airport to see the behemoth.

It is then the problems began. As per the Sydney Morning Herald

The ill passenger was taken off the plane and the flight was expected to resume shortly afterwards. But the plane ended up staying on the tarmac for a further four hours after an indicator light in the cockpit came on and required examination by an engineer.

Qantas said the light did not indicate a serious safety issue.

The airline sought approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to allow a Fiji-based A330 engineer to check the plane. However, before it could get approval, Qantas had to cancel the trip, because the flight crew would have breached their allowable working hours.

All passengers were accommodated in local hotels and a 747, sent to pick up the passengers, is expected to fly them to Sydney this morning.

The replacement Qantas Boeing 747-400 reached Sydney as flight QF 8012 with a delay of 25 hours.

Qantas has been having a spate of incidents recently, and I don't know if the bad luck of the airline is rubbing off on the new A380s.

30 December update.

Received a comment from a person claiming to part of the crew, who clarified that there was no glitch, but more of an issue of crew limits. Read the full comment below.

If true, I am indeed very happy.

Airbus SAS today handed over its 11th A380 superjumbo to Qantas Airways Ltd. of Australia.

Airframe serial number MSN022 was registered VH-OQC and christened Paul McGinness.

The plane was the third A380 for Qantas this year, Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said in an interview to Bloomberg.

The first two VH-OQA (Nancy-Bird Walton) and VH-OQB (Hudson Fysh) have been operating between Melbourne and Sydney and Los Angeles. Qantas is expected to deploy Paul McGinness on the "Kangaroo Run" between Sydney and London, starting in January 2009.

With just four days left in 2008, Airbus, the world’s largest maker of commercial aircraft, is scrambling to make one more delivery, in order to reach its goal of 12 deliveries this year.

That aircraft is expected to be delivered to Emirates, its largest customer for the A380, by Dec. 31, Schaffrath said.

Five A380's are already in operation with launch customer Singapore Airlines, and three with Emirates.

In 2009, Delta Air Lines will add its first-ever daily nonstop service between Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia* effective July 1; three-times weekly service between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil* beginning May 21; and increased service between Los Angeles and New York-JFK starting March 2.

The current seven daily flights between Los Angeles and New York-JFK will increase to eight in an effort to improve connections for New York and Northeast customers on long-haul international flights via Los Angeles. Additionally, Delta customers in the Southeastern U.S. will benefit from same-plane service between Atlanta and Sydney via LA.

Delta’s focus on Los Angeles is being supported by the recently announced expanded marketing agreement between Delta and Alaska Air Group that will make the two companies preferred partners on the West Coast.

Starting July 1, 2009, DL17 will depart Los Angeles at 2240 and arrive Sydney at 0640 two days later (after crossing the international date line).

Starting July 3, 2009, DL16 will depart Sydney at 0915 and Los Angeles at 0600 the same day (time saved by crossing the international date line).

The flight is expected to be 14 hours in one direction and 13 in the other.

The Sydney service will be operated on Delta's new Boeing 777-200LR in a two class configuration, fitted Delta's latest seating including fully flat-bed seating in business class in a herringbone layout.

Currently, the route is operated by Boeing 747-400's of Qantas and United in a 3 class configuration, but United is upgrading its aircraft, and Qantas is planning to introduce the Airbus A380 super jumbo with a 4th class, premium economy, on this route. More competition also coming in the form of Virgin Australia commencing operations with a Boeing 777-300ER in a three class configuration.

With this addition of capacity, fares are bound to head south (sorry for the pun), which while good news for the passengers, is not for the airlines. Will Delta or any of the other three airlines suffer the same fate as American and Continental and withdraw ? Only time will tell.

With the Sydney flight Delta will become only U.S. airline to fly to six continents, and is good news for the SkyTeam alliance, which is severely under-represented down-under. The Sydney service adds the crucial and missing Australia-North America link for the alliance.

Delta will operate Sao Paulo with a Boeing 767-300ER, in a two class configuration.

Starting May 21, 2009, DL233 will depart Los Angeles at 2100 Tue, Thu, Sun, and arrive Sao Paulo at 1320 the next day.

Starting May 22, 2009, DL234 will depart Sao Paulo at 2225 Mon, Wed, Fri, and arrive Los Angeles at 0730 the next day.

Thanks to a post by Jon Ostrower at FlightBlogger, I came across some breathtaking 360 degree panoramas of the Airbus A380. Thanks Jon.

The photographer, Giles Vidal, has produced several panoramic views from the delivery of the first A380 to Singapore Airlines, including tours of the cabin, to the A380 cockpit, and now a beautiful panoramic look inside the cabin of the Qantas Airbus A380.



I strongly urge you to visit the site. I do warn you however, the site is bandwidth hungry, and will mesmerize you and severely limit your ability to get any work accomplished.

As I indicated in my previous article, there are strong rumours of a "merger" or "tie-up" between Australian carrier Qantas and Malaysian Airlines (MAS). Given the regulatory stranglehold and national politics involved in Asia, a full merger is next to impossible.

Not only do I feel that this tie-up will happen, I strongly believe that it will result in positive results for all the players, not just the airlines.

The future for Qantas is Asia, but either due to a difference in business culture, or national ego, or economic and/or market positions, Qantas really has no serious potential partners in Asia, other than Malaysian. A tie-up with either Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines and can be written off due to culture or ego reasons. Garuda, Thai, Philippines, Eva, China Air, Air China, or any of the Taiwanese or Chinese airlines are too small or do not offer adequate economic benefits to Qantas.

Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, had said that Qantas was looking to be the senior partner in any merger or similar relationship that the carrier entered into. The recent failure of the merger talks with British Airways highlights Joyce's desires.

Under the able stewardship of Idris Jala, Malaysian has staged a phenomenal comeback. After years of losses, government intervention and its resultant inefficiencies, Jala has moved MAS in to profitability, for the last 3 years. Even until the third quarter of 2008, despite the economic crises, he has delivered profits. Driven by its formidable low cost carrier (LCC) competitor AirAsia, and Jala, MAS has undertaken ruthless cost cutting and route rationalisation. Despite this, Jala recognises, MAS will never meet the cost base of AirAsia, and has moved the airline up the value chain, focusing on the higher end of the market, instead.

Financially, Qantas has been in good profit for many years, thanks to the "Kangaroo Run", and has a decent cash balance sitting ready, should a deal with MAS come about.


At the same time, liberalisation is spreading through the region, may be in fits and starts. On December 1, the 70 year old duopoly of Malaysian Airlines and Singapore Airlines on the lucrative Singapore-Kuala Lumpur sector was opened up, after 5 years of lobbying by the LCCs of both countries, but Malaysia predominantly. Capacity has trebled virtually instantly.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) has much to offer. The airport was built and promoted by former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammed, as a competitor to Singapore's famous Changi Airport, a base for many international airlines, including Qantas.

Despite trying as hard as they could, KLIA could never match the economies of scale, and frequencies of Changi, which brought in increasing numbers of passengers. For many years, KLIA lagged, almost becoming a colossal white elephant. The poor situation at KLIA was further aggravated by its own government. For years, Malaysia resisted liberalisation of the KL-Singapore route. Apart from being one of Malaysian Airlines' most profitable routes, there was a constant fear of the undermining of KLIA as a hub, since Changi is easily the more preferred hub by both airlines and passengers.

Thanks to the fast growing AirAsia, KLIA is now making a comeback, as a low cost hub, but we should keep in mind, the airport still has high end facilities as well. KLIA is also a spacious airport, and with its planned expansion, will offer considerable growth opportunities to any global scale airline.

This low cost positioning is important. While Qantas withdrew from KLIA, due to low yields, and preferring to build economies of scale at Singapore, it has two low cost subsidiaries JetStar and Singapore based JetStar Asia. Jetstar Asia already flies to KLIA, and Jetstar used to fly the Sydney-KL route, but has withdrawn temporarily during the economic slow down.

Jetstar Asia has only a narrow body fleet, but is already reaping benefits from the recent KL-Singapore route liberalisation. Jetstar has a fleet of six Airbus A330's, two of which fly Australia to Japan (service due to terminate in December 2008), and can easily use KLIA as a base to expand the Qantas brand in to India, south-east Asia, the middle east, Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, in response to the challenges of the ever busy AirAsia who is making KLIA as a low cost hub for Australians, with its upcoming UK service. Once Jetstar receives its Boeing 787 Dreamliners, hopefully in 2010, the KLIA base will blossom as an alternate "Kangaroo run" route.

A well established base in the backyard of arch-rival Singapore Airlines, while still maintaining its presence at Changi will suit the Qantas/Jetstar group just nicely, affording them and potential partner, Malaysian Airlines, more options, with Qantas still maintaining presence at Changi.

Unlike the talks with British Airways, in case of Malaysian Airlines, the Malaysian government are serious and any deal will have their blessing. So it will behoove Qantas to proceed. In the near future, Qantas and Malaysian can extend their Oneworld alliance membership further with code sharing and various joint strategies. In the medium term, to overcome the restrictive regulatory framework in South-East Asia, I expect that Qantas and Malaysian Airlines will have to enter in to some time of cross-holding and also for Qantas buy a significant minority share in Malaysian.

A deal, if consummated, with help re-define the south-east Asian skies, and benefit not just the airlines, but also KLIA.

Bloomberg has an interesting analysis of the risks to British Airways after the failure of its merger talks with Qantas, and why BA must pursue its long dragging discussions with Iberia to success. Click here to read the article.

British Airways Plc and Qantas Airways Ltd are announcing that after detailed discussions about a potential merger, talks have ended.

Despite the potential longer term benefits to both British Airways and Qantas, the airlines have not been able to come to agreement over the key terms of a merger at this time.

British Airways and Qantas will continue to work together on their joint business between the UK and Australia and as part of the Oneworld alliance.

As per a Bloomberg article, in the face of continuing declines in global air travel,

British Airways Plc, Europe’s third- largest airline, will cut more than 100 jobs at London’s Gatwick airport as it reduces services there by 15 percent from mid-2009.

The number of aircraft based at the airport will be reduced to 37 from 41, the Harmondsworth, England-based airline said today in an e-mailed statement. The cuts to ground operations staffing will be on a voluntary basis, according to the statement.

The story also refers to the ongoing merger discussions between British Airways and fellow OneWorld partner Qantas.

In parallel I read about a PTI report about Malaysian Airlines seeking global partnerships. As per the report

Malaysia’s national carrier, Malaysia Airlines (MAS), is seeking partners to grow further but has not commented on reports that it is seeking a merger with British Airways and Australia’s Qantas. “We are in talks with a number of airlines on collaborating and creating synergies for growth. This ranges from Joint Ventures and code shares to interlining partnerships. For example, we have signed a memorandum of understanding with Qantas on a joint venture on maintenance, repair and overhaul,” Idris Jala, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, MAS said in a statement day before yesterday.

In Malaysian, Qantas will get access to the lucrative ASEAN, and intra-Asian routes, and will fulfill it's goals of becoming a truly global carrier. A Malaysian merger or partnership with also give the behemoth base level access to the ultra-large and very under-utilised Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). KLIA does have the potential to become a formidable competitor to Singapore's Changi Airport, a purpose for which former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammed championed its mammoth construction. It just needs the right amount of traffic, the amount a global carrier British Airways-Qantas-Malaysian will give.

Hamburg is cold and snowing, but it had warm news for Australian national carrier Qantas.

Two QANTAS A380s all painted up. MSN015 (F-WWSL - VH-OQB) is seen here taxiing out with MSN022 (F-WWSS - VH-OQC) in the background.


Both birds should be bound for warmer temperatures in the warm summer of Australia (in the southern hemisphere) very soon.

Tipping my hat to Jon Ostrower for the heads up.