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27 April 2005
HAMBURG – Airbus workers in Germany hailed Wednesday’s maiden flight of the Airbus A380 as they watched television coverage of the giant jet’s takeoff at Toulouse.
“There have only been a few moments of my career at Airbus which have been so exciting,” commented Gerhard Puttfarcken, head of Airbus operations in Germany.
He thanked the 20,000 German employees of Airbus for their efforts and said the maiden flight had shown their work had paid off.
Some 8,000 workers at the main Airbus plant in Hamburg cheered as they watched the plane rise into the skies over southern France. Besides Hamburg, Airbus has several other smaller sites in Germany.
“The atmosphere was great and happy, but possibly with some north German reserve,” one of the Hamburg employees commented. “In Toulouse there was a lot more going on.”
DPA
Subject: German news