Emirates A380 won't fly until Sept 12

REPAIR JOB: Emirates have suspended A380 flights until September 12 so engineers can fix electrical problem. (Getty Images)

Emirates has suspended operations of the Airbus SAS A380 airliner on its New York route until September 12 as engineers work on an electrical fault, the airline announced on Monday.

The airline, which took delivery of its first A380 in late July and began flying the double-decker aircraft in August, is serving the route with Boeing Co. 777-300ER aircraft, Dubai-based Emirates said today in a statement.

The carrier will resume A380 flights with twice-a-week service to New York, rather than three a week, to permit training flights and completion of engineering work "which is taking longer to complete than expected", Bloomberg reported.

The 550-seat A380, which surpassed Boeing's 747 as the world's largest passenger aircraft when it began flying commercially last year, is being delivered more than two years late because of difficulties in installing cabin wiring.

A spokesman at Toulouse, France-based Airbus weren't immediately available to comment on the Emirates statement.

The electrical fault on the Emirates plane ``was noticed at the end of a training mission, when the aircraft was parked in front of the hangars,'' said an official at the Dubai-based airline, providing no further details.

Airbus, the world's biggest maker of commercial aircraft, said in early September that it would be late in delivering Emirates' second A380. The manufacturer is sticking with a target of delivering 12 of the model to customers this year.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Cold Shower of Reality!
Posted by skyobserver, london, uk on Monday 8 September 2008 at 17:35 UAE time

I bet Mr. T.Clark wished he had never heard of on board showers now !

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