The world's biggest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has made its first commercial flight to Europe. A Singapore Airlines aircraft, with 449 passengers onboard flew from Singapore to London's Heathrow Airport.
After the 13 and a half hour flight, the plane was greeted by a water cannon salute from airport fire fighters. Heathrow has spent nearly 600 million euros on airfield and terminal modifications for the superjumbos.
This is the third A380 to go into service with Singapore Airlines. The planes have a range of 15,000 kilometres and can carry as many as 800 passengers. So far 192 have been ordered by airlines.
More and more of the superjumbos are due to come into service after two years of delays caused by wiring problems, which pushed Airbus into losses and led to a major restructuring of the plane maker with thousands of job cuts. Australia's Qantas is the next to take delivery in August with Emirates following in December.
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