A380 back on the rails as deliveries start.

In a major signal that the A380 has put its production problems behind it, the first superjumbo is on track for delivery to Singapore Airlines on Monday 15 October.

After a dedicated delivery ceremony in Toulouse, the aircraft will take off for Singapore's Changi International Airport within a couple of days. Inauguration of the world's first A380 commercial airline service, between Singapore and Sydney, is scheduled for 25 October.

In another boost for the programme, British Airways announced that it will buy 12 A380s (with seven options) as part of its long-term fleet modernisation. It is the first time that the UK carrier has selected Airbus for its long-haul fleet.

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Total orders and commitments for the A380 now stand at 185 from 15 customers. The subsequent aircraft for delivery to Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airlines and Qantas are also well on track.

On 21 August, the A380 arrived back in Toulouse, France at the end of its longest single test campaign so far. Test aircraft MSN007, which has a fully equipped cabin, spent almost a week each with teams at Singapore and Emirates airlines, which are the first and the largest A380 customers, respectively.

In Singapore, the focus was mainly on maintenance, operations, ground handling and a few particular systems. Singapore's teams, who are well prepared to start operating their own A380s, performed the work and Airbus personnel monitored and answered questions.

Similar checks were carried out in Dubai, although Emirates will only receive its first aircraft in August next year.

Meanwhile, the first A380 for Singapore Airlines is back in Toulouse, France after being painted and having its cabin interior installed at Airbus Hamburg, Germany facility. Airbus has begun pre-delivery tests on the aircraft. In parallel, the first pilots from this Asian carrier are completing their qualification to fly the aircraft.

Airline pilot training courses for the A380 began in June, with eight Singapore Airlines pilots starting the ground phase of the standard type rating course at their Singapore headquarters facility. Completion of the training is being one at Airbus Training in Toulouse using the flight simulator and the aircraft itself. Airbus has received validation from the European, American and Canadian civil aviation authorities for its first three A380 pilot training courses, which were approved after an evaluation process that began on 16 April.

The courses include the A380 standard type rating for pilots with no previous Airbus fly-by-wire experience, and two cross crew qualification (CCQ) courses for pilots transitioning from the A330 and the A340. A team of four pilots from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) acted as evaluators, while 10 pilots representing the authorities tested out the training.

One crew evaluated the A330 to A380 CCQ, another crew tested the A340 to the A380 CCQ, and three crews tried out the standard type-rating course. The team found that the A380 had very similar handling characteristics to the A330/A340, and crews had no difficulty in flying the aircraft.

The main differences were noted in the pilot interfaces, i.e. the onboard information system and the flight management's stem, which are covered in detail in the training.