Airbus A380 superjumbo makes first official flight to U.S.

It may trail the historic impact of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, but the Spirit of St. Louis also did not have a wingspan wider than a football field or space for more than 500 passengers.

For plane builder Airbus and German airline Lufthansa AG, the A380's first official flight to the U.S. onMonday was a chance to show off the superjumbo to potential U.S. buyers and to the airports they hope will be flight bases for the double-decker jet.

"We're talking about an airplane that is representing aviation in the 21st century in terms of efficiency," said Jens Bischoff, Lufthansa's vice-president for the Americas.

For Airbus, which has been beset by management and financial crises including a two-year delay to the A380 that wiped more than $6.61 billion US off profit forecasts the flight was a chance to prove that the plane will be ready when the first deliveries are made in October to Singapore Airlines.

Lufthansa Chief Pilot Juergen Raps, who has flown the A380 before, said that despite the superjumbo's size, it was nimble and responsive.

"If I were to compare it to driving, you would think this would be like driving a truck or a bus," he said inside the plane's cockpit. "It's like driving a Ferrari."

The air show began early Monday at Frankfurt International Airport when the 73-metre-long plane took off as Lufthansa Flight 8940 for the eight-hour flight to New York's JFK Airport. It landed in New York around12:30 p.m. ET. Some 550 people, including four pilots, four Airbus crew members, 23 Lufthansa cabin crew and 519 passengers, mostly Airbus and Lufthansa employees along with some reporters, wereon board.

Last November, an A380 paid a visit toVancouver International Airportas part of a round-the-world test flight. In February 2006, an A380 underwent cold-weather testing in Iqaluit. Monday's flight wasthe first with a full load. The flightoperated just as if it were a commercial one with full dining and entertainment services.

As a test on Sunday, organizers boarded more than 500 people onto the aircraft using two jetways with an impressive time of less than 20 minutes. A second test was held shortly after to see if the Lufthansa workers could board it faster.

Lufthansa and Airbus also plana demonstration flight to Chicago O'Hare Airport on Tuesday, before returning to New York and then Frankfurt. The plane then heads to Hong Kong and back, before continuing its journey to Washington Dulles International Airport on March 25, with a final stop at Lufthansa's Munich hub on March 28 to complete the series of optimization flights.

Using the performance results from this circuit flying the plane as it would be done if it were in service Lufthansa's goal is to match the A380's turnaround time from landing to takeoff with that of much smaller long-haul jets already in operation.

The A380, which burns about four litres of gas per passenger every 130 kilometres, can seat as many as 550 passengers. Airbus has 166 orders from 15 airlines for the new plane, which has already made tests flights in Europe and to Asia. So far, Air Canada has not ordered anyA380s.

Lufthansa, which has orders for 15 A380s and an option for five more, expects to use the planes on its international routes, mainly to Asia and North America. It expects the first one to be delivered in mid-2009, pushed back from 2008 by the manufacturing delays.

The problems at Airbus led Louis Gallois, co-chief executive of parent company European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., to call 2006 "the worst year for Airbus in its life." Airbus is seeking to recoup its losses by cutting 10,000 jobs and spinning off or closing six of its European manufacturing plants.