Which Airbus is the biggest?

The Airbus A380 is the largest model made by the European manufacturer and, until the arrival of any future generation, the largest commercial passenger aircraft in the world by maximum takeoff weight. With two full decks running the entire length of the fuselage, it offers more cabin floor space than any other civil aircraft in service. Its wingspan of 79.75 m required widening taxiways and gates at many airports, and several terminals were specifically designed to be able to operate it with two boarding bridges simultaneously on each deck. In a typical three-class configuration it usually operates with around 525 seats, well below its technical limit of more than 850 seats.

Fitted with four engines (Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Engine Alliance GP7200, depending on the operator), the A380 has a range of close to 15,000 km, enough to connect practically any pair of cities on the planet nonstop. Airlines such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines, and Qantas use it on their highest-demand routes, where its capacity reduces the number of frequencies needed between two high-demand airports.

Airbus closed the A380 assembly line in 2021 —the last unit was delivered to Emirates in December of that year— after delivering 251 aircraft, having failed to find sufficient demand for a four-engine aircraft in a market that favored more efficient twin-engine models, such as the A350 or the A330neo. Despite this, much of the fleet remains in active service. The manufacturer itself has ruled out developing a larger version or a direct successor, focusing its future strategy on twin-engine wide-body aircraft.