BA buys 19 double-deck superjumbos

Superjumbo planes will become a regular sight over west London after British Airways announced today it is buying up to 19 of the double-deck Airbus A380 aircraft.

BA said it will transform flight patterns into Heathrow with the £6.9bn acquisition of a new fleet of 555-seater A380s. It is also buying up to 42 of the new 250-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliners, believed to be the most fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly aircraft in the world.

The new aircraft will hasten the retirement of BA's ageing fleet of Boeing 747s, both noisier and greedier for fuel than the new generation of jets. They will come into service in 2012.

BA immediately moved to stem the fears of environmentalists camped at Heathrow and residents near the airport by insisting that despite the size of the A380, it will improve the airline's "green footprint".

Chief executive Willie Walsh said: "These aircraft are the gold standard in environmental performance. They are way more fuel-efficient. Airbus has done an extraordinary job because despite its size the A380 makes a quarter of the noise of a Boeing 747-400 jumbo."

The orders are also good news for British jobs. The wings of the A380 are made in north Wales while thousands of jobs are likely to be secured by BA's decision to power all its new fleet with engines made in Derby by Rolls-Royce. Rolls said the orders could be worth up to £2.5bn.

The new superjumbos are likely to be deployed on BA's ultra-long-haul routes to Singapore and Hong Kong and to the US west coast - but probably not to New York as BA focuses on frequency on that route.

Two years late and over budget by billions of euros, the A380 makes its inaugural commercial flight for Singapore Airlines this month and will come to London next year.