The Airbus A380 is the world’s largest passenger airliner, a wide-body aircraft manufactured by Airbus. The first prototype was unveiled in Toulouse on 18 January 2005, with its first flight on 27 April 2005. The full-length double-deck aircraft has a typical seating capacity of 525, though it is certified for up to 853 passengers. I simply love Airbus planes – particularly A350 & A380 and has been very closely following since the project inception in 2000s to demo flights in 2005 / 2006 when it visited Shanghai among other cities in the world to first flight between Singapore – Sydney in 2007 and till now. I also closley followed the Airbus factories in Hamburg & Tianjin. Im very sad that production of A380 would cease in 2021

AIRBUS A380

SPECIFICATIONS & LAYOUT

Cumulative orders and deliveries

Data from Airbus through the end of December 2019

AIRBUS A380 : OPERATORS

There were 234 aircraft in service with 15 operators as of 23 August 2019

Emirates is the largest A380 operator with 113 aircraft in service as of 11 November 2019

 

Etihad Airways’ first Airbus A380 taking off from London Heathrow for Abu Dhabi

• Singapore Airlines first service on 25 October 2007
• Emirates first service on 1 August 2008
• Qantas first service on 20 October 2008
• Air France first service on 20 November 2009
• Lufthansa first service on 6 June 2010
• Korean Air first service on 17 June 2011
• China Southern Airlines first service on 17 October 2011
• Malaysia Airlines first service on 1 July 2012
• Thai Airways first service on 6 October 2012
• British Airways first service on 2 August 2013
• Asiana Airlines first service on 13 June 2014
• Qatar Airways first service on 10 October 2014
• Etihad Airways first service on 27 December 2014
• Hi Fly Malta first service on 1 August 2018
• All Nippon Airways first service on 24 May 2019

Notable routes

• The shortest regular commercial route that the A380 flies is from Dubai to Muscat (349 km or 217 miles) with Emirates
• Air France briefly operated the A380 on the shorter Paris Charles de Gaulle to London Heathrow route (344 km or 214 miles) in mid-2010
• The longest A380 route is flown by Emirates from Dubai to Auckland at 14,203 kilometres (8,825 mi)
• It is the fourth longest non-stop commercial flight in the world

Aircraft on display

• The fourth test A380 (MSN4) was donated to the Musée de l’air et de l’espace at Le Bourget in 2017
• After several months of restoration, it was put on display on the apron in 2018, in close proximity to the museum’s Boeing 747-100, making the museum one of the first in the world where both superjumbos can be seen together
• Donated by Airbus at the same time as A380 MSN4, the second test A380 was donated to the Aeroscopia museum at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, Toulouse, along with the first Airbus A320 and an Airbus A340, that had also previously been used by the company for test flights

AIRBUS A380 – SPECIFICATIONS

 

Layout of A380-800, 519 seat configuration (331 lower, 188 upper)

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