Travel and vacations - Airbus A340-600

Sooner or later, but not for now. It would have been interesting if the
Iberia Airlines flight had enough passengers for the flight today - would
they have of diverted it?

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/...s-plane18.html

Controllers say O'Hare needs work before giant jet can land

September 18, 2003

BY ROBERT C. HERGUTH Transportation Reporter Advertisement

One of the world's largest commercial jetliners is expected to make its
first voyage to O'Hare Airport within a couple weeks, but its size is
presenting enough challenges that air traffic controllers want the flight
postponed until airfield improvements can be made to better accommodate the
model.

"The airport right now is not set up to handle airplanes this big," said
Craig Burzych, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
at O'Hare. "There are 31 intersections [involving runways and taxiways at
O'Hare] where that airplane is banned" once it's landed.

"My opinion is they shouldn't be allowed to fly into this airport until
modifications are made so this airplane can taxi on any taxiway," he added.

The Airbus A340-600 is more than 56 feet tall, with a wing span of 208 feet
and seating for nearly 400. That's a bit smaller than Boeing's giant
747-400, which already lands at O'Hare.

But the Airbus is roughly 15 feet longer -- the total length is almost 247
feet, making it the longest passenger plane in the world -- and the nose
gear and main gear are so far apart "it needs a whole lot of pavement to
make a 90-degree turn," Burzych said.

Many intersections aren't broad enough to allow those turns, he said. Those
that are will require "a near-perfect turn." If not executed properly,
A340-600s could end up "in the mud," Burzych said.

The planes are so big, once on the ground other aircraft will have to be
kept out of their path, which "is going to cause some delay issues," he
predicted.

Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation, said the
airport is equipped to handle the A340-600s. When an even larger cargo
aircraft arrived at O'Hare some years back, "we had to take down light
poles," she said. Not so with the Airbus. Besides, "it's not going to be
every day we see them," she said.

Spain's Iberia Airlines was expected to send an A340-600 to O'Hare today,
but not enough passengers booked the flight, so the first arrival now is
scheduled for Oct. 5, officials said.

Burzych says just four gates at O'Hare can handle such aircraft.