What is the Airbus A380?

The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger aircraft ever to enter regular service. It is a long-range quadjet with two decks running the full length of the fuselage, something no other commercial aircraft offers: the Boeing 747 only has an upper deck at the front. It measures 72.7 m (238 ft) in length, 24.1 m (79 ft) in height and 79.8 m (262 ft) in wingspan, and can take off at up to 575 tonnes. Airbus offered it with Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Engine Alliance GP7200 engines.

In a typical three-class layout it seats between 525 and 575 passengers, though its certification allows up to 853 in an all-economy cabin, a configuration no airline ever installed. Its range is around 14,800 km (8,000 nautical miles), enough to fly Dubai to Los Angeles nonstop.

Airbus launched the programme in December 2000 after years of studies into an aircraft that could challenge the 747's monopoly in the very-high-capacity segment. The first A380 took off from Toulouse on 27 April 2005, and Singapore Airlines put it into commercial service on 25 October 2007 between Singapore and Sydney. Only the A380-800 version was ever built; neither the stretched -900 nor the freighter variant made it past the drawing board.

The aircraft proved quiet, comfortable and popular with passengers, but airlines increasingly favoured smaller, more efficient twinjets such as the 777 and A350 for point-to-point flying that didn't depend on large hub airports. Airbus announced the end of the programme in February 2019 and delivered the last aircraft, number 251, to Emirates in December 2021. Emirates, with 123 aircraft, is by far its largest operator and still uses it as the backbone of its network out of Dubai.