HAMBURG, Germany, March 27 (UPI) -- European aviation giant Airbus said it passed a massive evacuation test for its new A380 jumbo plane, thus paving the way for certification by European and U.S. authorities in time for delivery by the end of 2006.
The test, held on the grounds of the company's production site in the northern German city of Hamburg, was a "great success," Airbus spokesman Tore Prang told United Press International Monday.
"We managed to evacuate 873 passengers in 80 seconds, so it took us ten seconds less than required. It's a very good result," Prang said. He added, however, that 32 people involved in the test attracted minor injuries, and one person suffered from a broken leg.
For the test, the aircraft was fitted with a very high density cabin layout, featuring 853 seats which were all occupied, the company said. Twenty crew members from Lufthansa managed the evacuation, which had the test persons slide out of the plane from a height of over 26 feet.
The trial was performed in a large hall in darkness and filmed by infrared cameras. Not every door or slide was operational, and the ones that worked were not known before the trial.
While the official test result, which will be issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency, is not expected for late Monday or Tuesday, officials from the EASA have already said they were "impressed" by the evacuation.
The test also was a prerequisite for officials from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to certify the plane, which cost Airbus nearly $15 billion to develop.
Safety standards have been a top concern since an A340 in Toronto burned down completely a few seconds after the cabin crew was able to evacuate all of its 300 passengers.
Analysts say the A380 now becomes increasingly interesting for customers who want to mount 700 or more seats into the plane. Such a measure may be planned by Middle Eastern airlines planning to fly massive numbers of pilgrims to Mecca, observers say.
"If the test hadn't gone well, it would have been a brutally bad shock for the company. The press would have cannibalized the results," Ulrich Horstmann, aviation analyst at the Bayerische Landesbank, Monday told UPI in a telephone interview. "But much more important than the evacuation test will be the timely delivery of the first models to Singapore Airlines. That's Airbus' real test."
So far, 159 planes of the super-sized double-decker (which also is available as a freighter model) have been ordered, with most A380s going to Asian and Middle Eastern customers. Singapore Airlines wanted to get the first of its ten ordered planes this month, but the airline will have to wait a bit longer.
Airbus last year had to announce it will not meet its initial deadline, aggravating 16 customers. Expected delivery will come before the end of 2006, Airbus promised.
"If they would not meet this coming deadline, it would be catastrophic for Airbus. But I think they can make it," Horstmann told UPI. "If there was insecurity, they wouldn't communicate the date so aggressively."
Airbus, which is owned by European Aeronautic, Defense & Space and British BAE Systems, developed the A380 to render obsolete the jumbo-jet 747, built by U.S. rival Boeing.
The 747 still is the market leader in the jumbo-jet sector and has been Boeing's success story over past decades. But Airbus wants to take over the leadership position in the jumbo-sector after it reeled in more commercial orders for its planes for the past four consecutive years.
When it comes to the total of in-service planes, however, the U.S. company still is far ahead.
As Airbus expects passenger numbers to double by 2020, the company is banking on a large workload for its new plane. An A380 on average will transport some 555 people, but up to 853 passengers can board. The 747 flies a maximum of 570 passengers.
Boeing announced late last year it would modernize its 747 model, but the Seattle-based firm is counting on other weight classes for future travel. The Americans contend that smaller long-haul aircraft will dominate the skies of the future, with flexible direct connections playing a major role.
Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner -- which can fly non-stop from New York to Tokyo -- is such a plane. The Dreamliner far outsells Airbus's respective model, the A350.
Prang, leading a tour of Airbus' vast production site in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, the third-largest aviation center in the world after Seattle and Toulouse, said 2,500 of the 11,000 people there work exclusively on the A380 project. The tail, cabin and parts of the front are built in Hamburg; other parts come from Airbus' factory sites in the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Belgium.
Five planes already assembled are repeatedly tested. Number Two sits in a large hall at the Hamburg site, guarded from unwanted onlookers.
"No photos allowed," Prang reminded the journalists before he swiped his access card and opened the door to allow them to peer at the vast plane.
