A380 Variant Question?

[shepherd]

Hello all!

Olmo (scramble user 757flyer) and me were discussing about the livery's on the A380's. Then we noticed the following:

Singapore airlines has got: Airbus A380-841.
Qantas has got: Airbus A380-842.
Air France has got: Airbus A380-861.
Emirates has got: Airbus A380-861.
Lufthansa has got: Airbus A380-841.

What does this variant in model names mean?
We couldn't figure out a pattern like Boeing has. all -06 Aircraft are KLM or ex. (Boeing 747-406, Boeing 777-306ER, Boeing 737-406 etc.)
But what does Airbus do? Is there a difference in performance, different engines, different interior?

So the head question is: Where do the model numbers stand for with the A380?

Kind regards, Olmo and Jeffrey.

[Starbucks]

The first number behind the 380-8 is the engine manufacturer

4 for Rolls Royce
6 for Engine Alliance (if I remember correctly)

The second number gives the engine generation, not sure but I think when a major change is made to the engine design i.e. the number changes from 1 to 2 etc...

[flying_kiwi]

The second number gives the engine generation, not sure but I think when a major change is made to the engine design i.e. the number changes from 1 to 2 etc...

Not quite.
The second number indicates engine variant. You can still get A320-212, -214 or -216s, they just have different variants of the CFM56 under the wing.

A good list can be found here.

Yorden