Air France A380 touches down in Montreal

An Airbus A380 touched down yesterday at Montreal-P.E. Trudeau airport (in Quebec, Canada) for the first time, arriving from Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

The very wide-bodied aircraft is continuing its demonstration flights around the world, proving it is perfectly compatible with the different airport structures designed to accommodate it.

Pilots and flight attendants from Airbus and Air France operated this outbound flight, along with the return flight on 15 November, under the supervision of the European aircraft manufacturer. A number of the manufacturer and airline's most valuable customers, along with members of staff among the winners of the competition specially organized for the event were invited on board the superjumbo aircraft, configured with the Airbus three-class layout.

Air France will be the first European airline to operate the A380, with three of the aircraft starting operations during spring 2009.

The airline has been preparing to integrate the new aircraft into its fleet operations plan over the past few months. This Paris-Montreal round trip was the occasion to check the compatibility of the A380 with the two airports' facilities, those of the S3 boarding satellite at terminal 2E of Paris-CDG, designed to provide parking facilities for six Air France A380s at the same time, and those of Pierre Elliott Trudeau international airport in Montreal.

All the ground operating procedures applicable to this aircraft (passenger disembarkation and boarding and baggage procedures, fuel and water supplies, the service provided by the cabin cleaning and in-flight catering teams and other on-board services) were also tested again.

Air France has chosen a version of the A380 equipped with 538 seats in three cabins:

- 80 in l'Espace Affaires and 106 in Tempo, on the top deck;
- 9 in l'Espace Première and 343 in Tempo, on the main deck.

The Air France A380s, powered by four GP 7200-type engines, specially developed by Engine Alliance, will be the most environmentally-advanced aircraft of their generation, in terms of fuel consumption and gas and noise emissions, offering a comfortable margin in relation to the most demanding noise standards.