One grounded A380 Superjumbo needs 4,500 hours work to fly again

Returning just one grounded A380 superjumbo back into the air requires 4,500 hours of work, Qantas Airways CEO Alan Joyce said, highlighting the challenge as aviation struggles to meet surging travel demand. Qantas parked all 12 of its Airbus A380s in June 2020 as travel dried up at the start of the pandemic. It’s bringing back 10 of the jets, the world’s largest passenger plane, as international demand rebounds. At a lunchtime speech in Sydney on Monday, Joyce explained the process of reactivating a plane that’s been sitting in the Californian desert for more than two years. “Just to wake up an A38O is 4,500 hours, or two months, of manpower. That’s 10 engineers working for two months in the Mojave Desert -- for one plane. They replace all 22 wheels, all 16 brakes, get rid of all of the oxygen cylinders and fire extinguishers. Everything on board the aircraft is replaced.” <br/>