Painting of first A380 for Singapore Airlines completed

With the distinctive blue and gold logo and the name “Singapore Airlines” across 33 metres of the aircraft fuselage, the world’s first customer A380 aircraft rolled out of the paint hangar in Hamburg, Germany, on 2nd May 2007.

With extraordinary precision, the entire surface area of the aircraft fuselage was “polished” by hand by some 100 painters working four shifts. The whole paint process took 21 days to complete.

Over 2,200 litres of chromate-free paint was used for painting the aircraft that has a surface area of 3100 m². The wafer-thin paint coat measures just 0.12mm and is able to withstand differences in temperatures from 60 to over 40 degrees Celsius.

Airbus is applying the most modern and environmental friendly techniques for the A380 painting process. Electrostatic pistols are used to minimize paint mist. Used air is cleaned and washed through a multi-stage cleaning process to ensure that paint particles are disposed separately.

Singapore Airlines is the launch customer for the A380 aircraft and is scheduled to take delivery of this aircraft in October 2007. The Airline has 19 A380s on firm order.