Thirty-four seconds to swallow almost 2000 m of track under an almost cloudless sky. Installed in the large cockpit alongside a second pilot and a mechanic, Claude Lelaie holds his breath.
This April 27, 2005, then director of flight tests at Airbus, he was in command to take off, for the first time, the A380, a gigantic aircraft of around 500 t, tall as an eight-story building. On the ground, 50,000 people from all over Europe gathered around Toulouse-Blagnac airport (Haute-Garonne). The atmosphere is festive. Motorhomes have taken up residence on the green hill near the slopes. "When you're in flight, you don't care about the world below," recalls Claude Lelaie.
Among the crowd of spectators of this historic moment, many anonymous people, a few personalities and a certain Philippe Jarry, vice-president of Airbus strategy Airplanes. The man who has worked tirelessly on the project for nine years has "tears in his eyes" when faced with this white bird which seems to fly away like a simple ULM. The crowd watches the takeoff in solemn silence. On board, the six crew members, four French, one Spanish and one German, put on an orange jumpsuit to be easily spotted in the event of an accident. But everything goes smoothly.
“During an inaugural flight, we avoid pushing the machine too much. From the outside, everything was immaculate. There was just a small hatch on a landing gear that was not properly locked, ”says Claude Lelaie. From Paris, President Chirac touts a "Europe of innovation and progress". "Superb", headlines Le Parisien headlines the next day.
Fifteen years later, Airbus' “super jumbo” is dying in almost general indifference and the coronavirus is likely to finish cutting off its wings. On May 20, Air France made a radical decision: its "monsters of the air" will be definitively grounded, two and a half years before the scheduled date. All the companies are reducing the airfoil, with the exception of Emirates, which intends to re-fly all its A380s until 2022. This widebody was born in general excitement.
Beginning of the 1990s. It was the aviation boom. Airbus has succeeded in establishing itself, in twenty years, as a serious competitor against the number one in the sector, the American Boeing. The two aircraft manufacturers wage a merciless struggle. The European A320s are a great success. More than 400 aircraft, each containing just over 150 seats, were delivered between 1988 and 1993. Opposite, Boeing is going it alone on the very wide-body market with its 747, which can carry more than 500 passengers. A new version is even under study. About fifteen airlines as well as industrial groups have been contacted.
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Airbus decides to reply. In early 1996, his boss, Jean Pierson, whistled for the end of recess. He instructed the German Jürgen Thomas to form a small team to discreetly think of a very large European carrier. “He surrounded himself with a chief engineer, a man for marketing (me), another for industry and a last for finance. At five, we had to stop Boeing and go around the world to survey the airlines, ”says Philippe Jarry.
Airbus, convinced of the future of the behemoths of the air
On June 26, 1996, the cream of air transport was invited for two days to a Relais & Châteaux privatized by Airbus, in Carcassonne (Aude). The idea of a gigantic plane is submitted to senior executives of the thirteen largest airlines in the world. The enthusiasm is general. Carrying more than 500 passengers in a device equipped with bars and shower stalls, this is a great promise of prestige and profits. The matter is understood: Europe will also have its very long haul. Eleven billion euros are budgeted to build what will become the A380.
But suddenly, a few months later, on January 21, 1997, Boeing handed over its plan for a new 747 to the closet. The American group has reviewed its priorities, believing that the air market is ultimately not conducive to the development of such large aircraft. “We were amazed. We had information that airlines were very close to signing with Boeing, ”recalls Philippe Jarry. Whatever. Reassured by the high-speed expansion of air traffic in Asia and convinced of the future of the wide-body aircraft niche, Airbus is maintaining its project, initially called "A3XX".
"The pride of seeing the biggest plane in the world pass"
The name is controversial. First potential buyers of such a machine, Asian companies do not want the "XX". Too common. They plead for the surname to include the number 8, considered in Asia as a lucky number. Some French people propose to baptize the plane “A360” because of its ability to “go around the world”. But, faced with the commercial weight of Asians, they must bow. So it will be the A380.
The project was approved on December 19, 2000, during the press conference organized for the birth of EADS, the new European aviation and armaments giant which will be renamed Airbus Group in 2014. One of the main shareholders , Arnaud Lagardère, presents the aircraft with great fanfare, supporting models. “With the launch of the A380, we are filling the last void in our product line. We can thus respond to all the wishes of our customers, ”says Noël Forgeard, future CEO of the brand new company.
For more than four years, the first aircraft was assembled day after day, piece by piece, in Airbus hangars in Toulouse-Blagnac. The parts, built all over the European continent, are transported by boat or by truck. At night, imposing convoys crisscross the Haute-Garonne. To allow them to circulate without hindrance, Airbus has financed numerous improvements and widened the route. In the small town of Lévignac, the trucks, escorted by bikers from the gendarmerie, drive at idle. The fuselage of the future A380 borders on the houses on both sides of the road, under the intrigued gaze of the inhabitants. Each time, until the last date, February 26, 2020, the event caused a sensation.
"It was an attraction, and we felt a certain pride in seeing the largest airplane in the world pass by," recalls the new mayor, Frédéric Lahache, who has lived in this commune since 2004. Some parts - such as the rear of the device - are so large that they can only be transported in the south of France ... by air. Since 1995, Airbus has had its imposing cargo plane "Beluga", so nicknamed because of its whale-shaped line. Time passes, the orders are linked. In 2000, six companies (including Air France) signed for 50 aircraft, and 42 as an option. Ten years later, they will be fourteen to have taken the plunge, for 251 copies.
The A380 is exhibited for the first time on January 18, 2005. In the vast Jean-Luc Lagardère hall, at Toulouse's Airbus headquarters, nearly 5,000 guests, employees, customers and elected officials attend a grand sound and light show around of the "human dream", to fly. In the front row: the leaders of the four main European countries. Jacques Chirac rubs shoulders with German Gerhard Schröder, Spaniard José Luis Zapatero and Briton Tony Blair. Perfect illustration of European cooperation, sixty years after the end of the Second World War and fifteen years before Brexit. Three months later, make way for the inaugural flight.
In total, the five A380s designed for the tests will spend almost four thousand hours in the air, flying over all the countries of the world, in the most extreme weather conditions - down to - 30 ° C in Canada! "The airports wanted to test us all to be sure that the boarding gates fit together without blocking those next door," says Claude Lelaie. With its 80 m wingspan, its 73 m long and its two passenger decks, the aircraft requires specific infrastructure.
In 2005, delays in delivery are looming
Several sites, including Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle (Val-d'Oise), bring two gigantic terminals out of the ground to be able to accommodate it. “From the cockpit, you can't see the tips of the wings. It is therefore difficult to assess the room for maneuver with the obstacles, even if, after a while, we begin to have a precise idea of the size, "explains François Desenfants, Air France pilot now retired.
But the trouble begins. At the end of 2005, in Toulouse, engineers realized that parts delivered from Germany were not compatible with those made in France. Industrial disaster. Major wiring operations have to be redone, resulting in thousands of additional hours of work. The double budget and significant delays in deliveries are looming. When they were announced on June 14, 2006, EADS shares plunged on the Paris Stock Exchange.
Almost two years behind the original schedule, it was not until October 25, 2007 that the A380 carried civilian passengers for the first time. The flight, chartered by Singapore Airlines, connects Singapore to Sydney, Australia. On November 20, 2009, it was Air France's turn to sand champagne. More than 500 VIP passengers embark at Roissy, bound for New York. The French company will finally have ten A380s, with a capacity of 516 seats each.
The A380 makes most pilots fantasize. “It made me dream to transport so many people, it was a real challenge. It's like being the mayor of a village with a human side and full of small problems to manage, "recalls François Desenfants, four thousand hours of flight on the A380 between 2009 and 2017.
“The first time I saw it, it didn't seem very slender. But it is quite extraordinary inside, very silent, with a very large cockpit. We don't have to hit our heads when we get up, ”adds another pilot, who is just as experienced. "It is especially the Concorde that made the drivers dream", nuances a third. “The Concorde was truly revolutionary compared to what we had done so far, with many aerodynamic challenges to overcome. Technically, the A380 was much simpler, ”says Claude Lelaie.
Among the passengers of the "monster of the air", the same words come back to describe their experience: comfort, calm, silence ... "Despite its large size, it flies away like a dragonfly, it's impressive. We have the feeling of floating, as if in weightlessness, ”recalls Jean-Louis, boarded on a Frankfurt-Johannesburg flight between Germany and South Africa, in 2015.“ It's also nice for walking around, we have room in the aisles, ”savored Delphine, a thirty-something mother of two who borrowed it several times.
But if the A380 is "an engineer and passenger dream", it quickly becomes a "commercial failure", in the words of a former Air France employee. Already destabilized by the delays in delivery, the airlines are suffering the brunt of the economic crisis of 2008. The stock markets are collapsing, investments are postponed.
To make matters worse, the very widebody knows several bugs in flight. Some even dress it up with the A180 nickname, like 180 degrees, because of its need to "turn around" regularly. It was on November 4, 2010 that such an incident occurred for the first time: an aircraft of the Australian company Qantas had to return to land in an emergency in Singapore because of a serious engine damage.
"It lacks flexibility, and is not profitable enough"
Passengers, on the other hand, prefer flights at all hours and nonstop, not requiring to go through a "hub", these large airport platforms, the only ones capable of accommodating A380s. The thinking heads of Airbus had made the opposite bet. With the anticipated saturation of air traffic, the future seemed promising for very large aircraft, capable of carrying more than 500 passengers at once.
"But, today, the airports are not saturated, with a few exceptions, like that of London", points Claude Lelaie. Not only does its large size prevent the A380 from landing everywhere, but, to be profitable, it cannot travel half empty. There is also no question of having several flies per day on the same route.
“It lacks flexibility. For the price of two A380s, you can operate three A330s, which are easier to fill, ”underlines aeronautical expert Xavier Tytelman. Besides, the main low cost companies ignore it. Boeing also understood this, by putting the turbo on its 787, a long-haul aircraft of smaller capacity (250 seats). With delay but success, Airbus will catch up with the A350, which can carry more than 300 passengers.
Bigger, heavier ... and too polluting
Orders for the A380 have declined over the years. Dozens are even canceled. Especially since the larger and heavier super jumbo is also more polluting. A real thorn for this giant, while ecological demands increased in the 2010s. At the end of 2015, after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreements, the “flygskam” movement appeared in Sweden, literally the “shame of flying” " The young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has become an ecological icon, popularized this trend by traveling the planet by sailing boat or by train.
Weighted with so many faults, the A380 cannot survive. In February 2019, Tom Enders, then head of Airbus, announced the end of production and the end of deliveries in 2021. At Air France, the fleet will be shut down in 2022. But the coronavirus is precipitating the fall of the monster from the air. In the spring of 2020, the borders are closed, the inhabitants are confined and the planes remain on the ground. According to most projections, air traffic should not return to its pre-crisis level for five or six years. On May 20, Air France accelerated its schedule and decided not to fly its A380s again.
VIDEO. Airbus to stop producing the A380: end of an extraordinary aircraft
"It made my heart ache," says pilot François Desenfants. British Airways, Qantas and Germany's Lufthansa are also reducing their fleets. The last fires of a myth born in Carcassonne a quarter of a century ago are extinguished. On April 27, 2005, during the inaugural flight to Toulouse, Philippe Jarry confided to his neighbor, the writer Erik Orsenna: “See this plane, we were talking about it in the future. Today we talk about it in the present. One day we will talk about it in the past. Fifteen years later, we are there.