Airbus A380

Airbus A380
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	Singapore Airlines Airbus A380
Role	Wide-Body Double-Deck Jet airliner
National origin	Multi-country origin
Manufacturer	Airbus
First flight	27 April 2005
Introduction	25 October 2007
Status	No longer produced but used by airlines
Primary users	Singapore Airlines; Emirates ; Qantas ; Lufthansa
Produced	2004-2021
Number built	272 (March 2021)
Unit cost	US$350M

The Airbus A380 (also called "Super-jumbo-jet") is a four-engined, double-decked airliner manufactured by Airbus. It is the world's biggest passenger airplane,^[1] larger than the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. However, the six-engine Antonov An-225 super-freighter was even bigger.

A Lufthansa A380 with a Boeing 747

The Airbus A380 prototype lands in France.

The Airbus A380 can carry up to 850 passengers (but it usually carries about 525), and weighs over 550 tonnes.^[2] It has four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines or four Engine Alliance GP7000 engines. The companies General Electric and Pratt & Whitney make alliance engines. The last A380 was produced in 2021 and delivered to Emirates. ^[3]

Orders

A Qantas Airbus A380 at Melbourne Airport

Hundreds of A380-800 airplanes have been ordered by 20 airlines. One has been ordered by a Saudi Arabian Prince, Al-Walid bin Talal and 10 by a company called ILFC (who gives other airlines airplanes for rent).

Emirates Airlines (an airline from the United Arab Emirates) has the most A380 aircraft, because they have ordered 123 aircraft. ^[4] Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first A380, which flew to Sydney in Australia on October 25, 2007. Singapore Airlines has 19 A380s.^[5]

Other airlines which ordered the A380 are:

Qantas (from Australia, currently operating 12)
Air France (formerly operated 10)
China Southern Airlines
Lufthansa (the German airline, which has 8)
Kingfisher Airlines (from India)
Korean Air (from South Korea)
Thai Airways

An Emirates A380, the launch customer
Malaysia Airlines
British Airways
Qatar Airways
Etihad Airways (from the United Arab Emirates)
Virgin Atlantic (from the United Kingdom)
Air Austral (France).^[6]

More than 200 A380 have been delivered, including 15 in 2017 and 12 in 2018.

Freighter Version

Airbus was going to make a version of the A380 to carry cargo instead of people. This would look almost the same as the normal passenger version, but with no windows and much bigger doors. Some cargo companies ordered the plane, like FedEx and UPS. Because Airbus took too long to make the A380 freight version, those orders were canceled.^[7] Because Airbus has not gotten any orders for the plane anymore, they decided to not make the freighter version for a while and focus on making the passenger version of the A380.

Incidents

The Airbus A380 had 1 incident, with no deaths.

On 4 November 2010, Qantas Flight 32 was flying from Singapore Changi Airport when the number 2 engine failed, causing some damage to the plane, and forcing it to return to Singapore. Nobody was injured, but debris from the airplane fell onto the island of Batam, in Indonesia. Investigations found that the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine leaked oil, causing an explosion.^[8] Other Trent 900 engines had similar problems and many engines had to be replaced and the FAA issued that all Airbus A380s currently in service are required to go under mandatory inspections before takeoff to prevent future engine problems.^[9]

Airbus A380 Media

The double-deck cross-section
Geographical logistics sequence for the A380, with final assembly in Toulouse
Drone footage of a wing being transported from its factory at Broughton, Wales, down the River Dee to Mostyn, and onwards to France, March 2020
A380 components on a barge
The first completed A380 at the "A380 Reveal" event in Toulouse, France, 18 January 2005
Flight test engineer's station on the lower deck of A380 F-WWOW
Bare cabin for flight tests with water tanks as ballast
A Singapore Airlines A380 taking off from Sydney Airport
A6-EVS, the last A380 to roll off the production line at Toulouse, photographed at Heathrow Airport on 19 November 2022. This aircraft, serial number 272, entered service with Emirates on 16 December 2021.