AIRBUS A380 AIRCRAFT HISTORY, FACTS AND PICTURES - INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR PHOTOS

The Airbus A380 manufactured by Airbus S.A.S. is a double-decker, four engined airliner capable of flying 800 passengers in a high density format or 555 passengers in a typical three-class configuration. The aircraft is scheduled to commence flight tests in March 2005 with deliveries to start in 2006.

The A380, known for many years during its development phase as the Airbus A3XX, will be the largest airliner in the world by a substantial margin when it enters service.

The A380 was unveiled in a lavish ceremony in Toulouse, France, on January 18, 2005. Its Manufacturer's serial number (MSN) was 001 with the registration F-WWOW.

The new Airbus will initially be sold in two versions: the A380-800, a full double-decker configuration, with the ability to carry 555 passengers, in a three-class configuration, or up to 800 passengers in a single economy configuration, for 8,000 nautical miles (14,800 km), and the A380-800F dedicated freighter, to carry 150 tons for 5,600 miles (10,400 km).

Airbus operates 16 manufacturing sites across Europe, most of which produce parts for the new A380 airliner.

In a first step, the front and rear sections of the fuselage are loaded on an Airbus RORO ship, Ville de Bordeaux, in Hamburg, northern Germany, whence they are shipped to the United Kingdom. There the huge wings, which are manufactured at Filton in Bristol and Broughton in north Wales, are transported by barge to Mostyn docks, where the ship adds them to its cargo. In Saint-Nazaire, western France, the ship trades the fuselage sections from Hamburg for larger, assembled sections, some of which include the nose. The ship unloads in Bordeaux. Afterwards, the ship picks up the belly and tail sections in Cadiz, southern Spain, and delivers them to Bordeaux.

From there, the A380 parts are transported by barge to Langon, and by road to Toulouse, where the A380s are assembled before being flown to Hamburg to be furnished and painted.

After years of design studies and airline surveys, Airbus finally made the decision to go ahead with the € 8.8 billion A380 project in 1999, the final budget settling at about € 12 billion. The design strategy was carefully crafted and by being very large the A380 achieves much better seat-distance costs than any other aircraft. The 747 achieved this in 1969 by being a wide body jet as opposed to the A380's double-decker configuration with early concept 747 double-decker designs rejected for many reasons.

The A380 features an all-new wing design after it was found the A340 wing was too small to be efficient at the sort of gross weights required for a 600 seat aircraft and rather than settle for a 600 tonne wing design instead aimed the wing design at 750 tonnes. This sacrificed some fuel efficiency but the sheer size of the design coupled with the incremental advances in technology over the years allows Airbus to claim 15 percent better economics than a 747 or an A340. The rationale for this design is that Airbus will be able to produce bigger versions of the A380 which will reach their optimum cost-efficiency somewhere around the 700 to 800 passenger mark — close to twice the size of a 747-400.

While the A380 was being sold to the airlines, Boeing shopped the concept of the 747X, which was to be a version of the 747 with the "hump" at the front of the aircraft extended further back for more passenger room but failed to garner enough interest from the airlines. Boeing subsequently announced a plan to replace the 757 and the 767 with the 787 Dreamliner leaving their intentions in the market for over 400 seats unknown. Based on their work with existing clients on the 747 Advanced there is some speculation that Boeing will eventually announce their plans for the next generation 747.

Despite difficulties suffered by the airline industry since 2001, the A380 has been ordered by fourteen airlines so far. Perhaps more significantly, Airbus holds a substantial order from AIG 's aircraft leasing unit, ILFC, which indicates that industry analysts expect airline demand for aircraft in this size class to be strong in the later years of the decade. Current firm A380 orders stand at 154, including 17 freighter versions. Break-even is estimated to be around 250 to 300 units. Airbus CEO Noel Forgeard has said that the company expects to sell 750 of the aircraft. Many market analysts claim that even these expectations are too high and that a number around 600 is more realistic.