Trafford News

A380 welcomed at Ringway

By Robert Downes

10:15am Tuesday 7th September 2010

THOUSANDS of spectators made their way to Manchester Airport last week to see the arrival of the World’s largest airliner, the Airbus A380, arrive.

The Emirates aircraft, pictured touching down, began its daily service on Wednesday and was witnessed by an estimated 3,500 people who gathered around Ringway’s perimeter.

Not everyone was as thrilled to see the colosal airliner, whose first class passengers have access to personal showers and beds, in the skies over Manchester. Protestors from eco-group the Manchester Airport Environment Network, described the plane as the ‘single most environmentally-damaging’ aircraft ever, in part thanks to it having to huge waterload for the first class showers.

“The impact all these new aircraft will have on the environment is far from benign, as Airbus, Emirates and Manchester Airport’s PR flim-flam would have us believe,” said the group’s spokesman, Jeff Gazzard.

“Flying an extra half a ton of water around so that 14 first class passengers can spend five minutes in one of the two onboard showers is simply the most extravagant waste of resources we’ve ever heard of!

“Emirates green credentials and efficiency boasts totally fall apart – doubling the onboard water load is nuts and equivalent to removing five passengers and their luggage from each flight.

“This has to be the single most environmentally-damaging waste of water ever in the history of H2O!”

He added: “Up to 1,300 new large aircraft like the A380 will be in our skies over the next 30 years, a wholly negative addition that will only increase, not decrease, climate change impacts caused by our addiction to flying.”

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