British Airways takes delivery of their first Airbus A380

Hot on the heels of getting their first Boeing 787, British Airways today is having its first Airbus A380 delivered.

Image – Airbus

G-XLEA (Droll, very droll) left Toulouse at 8:55CET, as flight BA9158P/BAW380 – http://www.flightradar24.com/BAW380 with a compliment of crew and 50 guests aboard (yours truly not invited sadly) and touched down safely at Heathrow Airport at 10:33BST.

The A380’s will be used initially on the Los Angeles and Hong Kong route, whilst the training flights will be to Frankfurt. The 787-8’s will be used on initially to Newark and Toronto, with training flights to Stockholm. This is after crew training is completed.

Exact dates of the training flights have yet to be confirmed.

British Airways are expecting 12 Airbus A380’s over the coming years as part of their long haul fleet replacement.

In terms of seating, here’s the skinny of what’s where…

• First – 14 Seats, Main Deck, Front
• Club World (Business Class) – 97 Total – 44 Seat on the main deck, 53 on the upper deck
• World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) – 55 Seats Upper deck
• World Traveller (Economy) – 303 Seats – 199 Main Deck, 104 Upper Deck

TOTAL = 469

It’s always interesting to see airlines add new aircraft to their fleet, and for BA who are embarking on a programme that will see a new aircraft delivered approximately every 2 weeks for the next 15 months.