Found this update on my intranet site, for your info.
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BRITISH PILOT TO FLY SUPERJUMBO INTO HEATHROW
Peter Woodman
17 May 2006
Press Association Newswire
British test pilot Ed Strongman will be at the controls tomorrow as the world's biggest passenger airliner, the Airbus A380, flies into Britain for the first time.
The 555-seater double-decker plane, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, is flying from the Berlin Air Show to Heathrow airport in west London.
Among those greeting the 240ft-long aircraft at Heathrow's new £105 million pier 6 at Terminal 3 will be Chancellor Gordon Brown.
En route from Berlin, Mr Strongman and his crew will be taking the £170 million plane over two Airbus UK plants - Broughton in North Wales, where the A380's huge wings are made, and Filton in Bristol.
The A380, which is due to go into passenger service at the end of this year, will stay at Heathrow for airport-compatibility tests before returning to Berlin in the early hours of Friday morning.
Heathrow operator BAA is spending £450 million to enable the airport to be ready to take the A380 and other ultra-large aircraft of the future. Other work has included runway resurfacing, upgrading runway lighting and the construction of new taxiways.
Toulouse-based Airbus has so far taken 159 firm orders from 16 airlines for the A380, which has been developed at a cost of around £6 billion.
Singapore Airlines will be the first carrier to put the plane into passenger service. Other airlines that have ordered A380s include Sir Richard Branson's airline Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, Qatar Airways and Dubai-based Emirates.
But a number of major carriers, including British Airways, have held back from committing themselves, preferring to wait and see how the plane performs.
First shown off at Toulouse in a lavish event attended by Prime Minister Tony Blair in January last year, the A380 first flew the following April.
Around 13,000 UK jobs are dependent on Airbus. There has been concern over employment levels following the decision taken earlier by UK company BAE Systems to sell its 20% stake in Airbus.