Qantas, which is an Australian airline, said it temporarily grounded another one of its A380 jets after discovering 36 tiny cracks inside its wings during a maintenance inspection. Qantas wants to put the safety of consumers first.

After hearing this, the European Aviation Safety Agency ordered all 68 Airbus A380s in operation to have their wings checked. These tiny cracks were found by chance, but now all other airlines know what to look for. Luckily, the plane that had the cracks was requested to be checked after it flew through severe turbulence. Had it not been requested, it is not known just how many more cracks would have developed before it was noticed.

This plane is able to carry up to 800 passengers. Not only that, but the planes themselves are huge. That means that there is a lot of pressure that is placed on the wings all the time.

Of course, this is not the first A380 that has gotten cracks in its wings. Apparently, just last week, cracks were found in the wings of a A380 operated by Singapore Airlines. There was also another Qantas plane that had cracks as well. There is apparently something wrong, and this style of plane is developing cracks in its wings.

Qantas Airways has since grounded some of its A380s. Rolls Royce has identified a single component that it believes is responsible for the fault in its Trent 900 engines. Following this recent announcement, Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, said that he believes the engine manufacturer will now replace up to 40 of its engines.

He went on to say that they have been talking to Airbus and Rolls Royce, and they understand that the number of engines to be replaced is around 40. They will have a daily dialogue with Rolls Royce to determine which engines actually need these new engines. Mr Joyce also went on to confirm that the airline has already replaced three engines on its A380 planes.

It is great that Rolls Royce has offered to make new engines for these planes, but they really had little choice. With so many of their Trent 900 engines failing, they had to justified the situation. No company wants to buy products from another company that will not stand behind their product.

The truth of the matter is that Rolls Royce needs to back their engines to keep up their good name. Right now the company has a good reputation, but putting out engines that are catching on fire is never a good sign. Rolls Royce is going to do whatever they have to, to get by this problem quickly and move on.

Qantas went on to ground six giant A380s after an engine exploded minutes after taking off from Singapore to Sydney last week. The exploded engine showered pieces all over Indonesia’s Batam island.

The Qantas boss, Alan Joyce, said that engineers found leaks beyond an acceptable level in three engines that were built by Rolls Royce. The manufacturing company, which is actually working with Qantas on the investigation of the engines, has seen its market value fall more than £1.5 billion since the incident.

Singapore Airlines, which also flies these super jumbo jets, said that its inspections have found no problems with its Rolls Royce Trent 900 engines. Despite this, Qantas and Rolls Royce engineers carried out eight hours of extensive checks on each engine over the weekend.

Mr Joyce said that the oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances. So Rolls Royce and the Qantas engineer team has looked at what they have gathered as an accepted level, and these engines are leaking beyond that threshold. All of the engines are new engines on a new aircraft type. The engines are not performing to the parameters that people would expect them to.

Joyce said that all of the airline’s A380s would be grounded at least for an additional 72 hours. He said that they are not going to take any risks with these planes whatsoever.

Starting July 1^st, flight EK004 will go from being served by a B777-300 to an A380. The jet will be leaving LHR daily at 8:40pm and arriving at Dubai International at 6:30am the next day. This is in addition to the EK002, which is the current daily A380 service.

Passengers will then be able to connect to flight EK412 from Duabi at 9:45am and arrive in Sydney at 5:30am the next day. The same aircraft then flies on to Auckland from Sydney, arriving at 12:15pm the next day.

Emirates’ senior VP of commercial operations in Europe, Salem Obaidalla, said that it had made a long term commitment to double up on the double decker on the UK route. This suggests that Heathrow will be served by two Emirates A380s for quite some time. London Heathrow was one of the key airports Emirates had in mind when the A380 was first launched.

Emirates A380, which has 517 sets, has 14 flat bed first class suites, plus a lounge and shower spa. There are 76 fully flat beds in business and a massive 427 economy seats. Emirates has a total of eight of these huge jumbo jets. These planes serve eight routes, including Toronto, Paris, Jeddah, Bangkok, Seoul, Sydney and Heathrow. Emirates has even talked about serving Beijing with a A380, which would take the amount of these aircraft that the company has to 9.

The funding deal takes places as other Dubai state-run companies are facing scrutiny over their willingness to pay back over $80 billion in debt.  Emirates, the world’s top buyer of the A380 is fully owned by the city-state.

President of the airline, Tim Clark, said the carrier remains financially secure in spite of concerns over the health of other Dubai state borrowers.

He added that Emirates had never experienced difficulties in obtaining finance for their aircraft acquisition program, with both international and regional banks comfortable with their financial stability.

Clark went on to point out the airline had always honoured its financial commitments and was pressing ahead with its ambitious growth plans.

The airline said it received $1.13 billion in financing for six A380 superjumbos from Citigroup and Doric Asset Finance, and the funds would b used to pay for the aircraft being delivered this year and next.

A recent price list for the French based aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, shows the A380 jet selling for an average of $327.4 million, though airlines usually negotiate discounts especially for bulk orders.

Emirates now own five A380 jets and have a further 53 on order, more than any other airline.  The rapidly growing carrier also operates more Boeing 777 jets than any other airline.

The airline plans to operate the new aircraft on routes to Paris and Seoul later this month.

The A380, which was meant to be in operation in time for the Beijing Olympics, would start flying from Seoul to London in time for the games. This is big news for Korean Air, as many people love to go watch the Olympic games. Right now many airlines are doing all they can to bust routes and capacity to London in time for the games.

The chairman and CEO of Korean Air, Yang Ho Cho, said just recently that the UK market is important for Korean Air. This is because London is one of the most important hubs in all of Europe. This is something that Korean Air hopes to take advantage of and, thus, explains the launch of an A380 on the route in time for the Olympic games in 2012.

Yang Ho Cho went on to say that the carrier has ordered 10 A380′s, and they had hope to have them launched in time for the Beijing Olympic games. He said that they will now operate in the bigger markets and London. He noted that they will be on the London route in time for the games this time.

Yang Ho Cho added that Korean Air would welcome Japan Airlines as the ninth member of the Skyteam alliance of airlines. He said that Japan Airlines is a very important airline in Asia and Skyteam is currently negotiating with the carrier.

Some of the people that were on board the A380 were a bunch of A380 buffs who had placed bids for spots on the plane, which was all arranged by Air France. The auction was set up to benefit children oriented humanitarian programs. The total amount of money that was raised in the auction by Air France has yet to be disclosed.

Air France has now become the first European carrier to fly the A380. The aircraft has already been in use by Singapore Airlines, Gulf-based Emirates, and Qantas in Australia. However, as far as Europe goes, Air France is now the first.

Air France has also commented that regular commercial flights across the Atlantic are to start on November 23. The carrier, with its fleet of 12 A380′s, will serve Johannesburg, starting in February and then Tokyo soon after.

Despite this big launch by Air France, the commercial success of the A380 has yet to be secured. This is because the A380 had suffered major production delivery delays. The manufacturer was able to deliverer its 20^th A380 to Air France at the end of October. This was two years after the aircraft’s first commercial flight. Thus, it is easy to see why some airlines have become fed up with the wait.

The Qantas A380 will become the first A380 to fly over the continent, and the only aircraft that has been given permission to do so on New Years Eve.

The flight, which will depart Sydney and fly via Melbourne to reach Antarctica, has been organised by Melbourne-based Antarctica Sightseeing Flights.

Passengers will have the chance to fly over the ice at midnight and be the first in the world to see the light of the New Year.

The chartered Qantas A380 will fly for up to four hours above the ice in figure-eight patterns before heading back to Melbourne and Sydney.

The Qantas A380 fleet is configured to seat up to 450 passengers with a range of eight seating options for the Antarctic flights.

Prices from Sydney and Melbourne for the New Year’s Eve flight range from $999 for an Economy Class Centre seat to $6,299 in First Class.

The sightseeing company has planned two other chartered services including a second A380 direct from Sydney on January 24 and a Boeing 747-400 from Melbourne.