FRANKFURT - An Airbus A380, the worldÂ’s largest commercial airliner, made its maiden US landing Monday at Los Angeles international airport, hours ahead of a sister plane expected to land shortly in New York, broadcast reports said. The plane flew to California from Toulouse, France, carrying no passengers, only crew, to test its landing capabilities at Los Angeles.More than 100 people gathered to watch the spectacle. Footage broadcast by CNN showed the planeÂ’s wings dipping sideways after it touched down.
Meanwhile, some 483 persons were on board an Airbus 380 operated out of Frankfurt for the first nearly-full passenger trans-Atlantic flight. The double-decker plane, with a capacity for 555 passengers, was expected to land at New YorkÂ’s Kennedy airport shortly. Most of the passengers travelling on the flight that left Frankfurt were invited guests and employees of Airbus and the German airline Lufthansa. Lufthansa said passengers used three air bridges to board the plane. Boarding took just 21 minutes before the 480-ton behemoth left on its 6,160-kilometres journey at 9.03 am (0803 GMT).
The flights are being used to test docking facilities at airports as well as boarding procedures and inflight operations. The superjumbo has already landed at 40 airports on a series of test flights across the globe. By 2011 some 70 airports are expected to be capable of accommodating the 73-metre-long plane.