First Airbus A380 returns to the air
March 16, 2025
The A380-841 (F-WWOW, MSN0001) will be used for a series of flight tests in support of the certification of new developments that aim to keep the A380 in-service fleet flying at the highest of safety and reliability standards.
The first A380 prototype made its first flight on 27 April 2005, and was the first of 254 A380s (including three test aircraft). The A380 is the largest and most spacious passenger airliner ever built, but was an aircraft before its time, and production was cut short in the face of competition from the twin-jet 777. Almost ten years after the maiden flight, on 14 December 2014, the aircraft flew from its base at Hamburg to Toulouse-Blagnac, for a ceremony with the last A380 built (MSN272, A6-EVS).
The first A380 has spent much of its recent career as an engine testbed, its large size and four-engined configuration making it ideally suited to being an engine test platform. The Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine for the A350 was first flown on the port inboard pylon of F-WWOW on Saturday, 18 February 2012, in a smart dark blue nacelle.
The aircraft subsequently flew with the Trent XWB-97, the most powerful engine ever developed for an Airbus aircraft, on 5 November 2015, long before it would ever be fitted to the A350-1000 for which it was intended. This time, the engine was housed in a gaudy pink nacelle.
In 2020, the A380 MSN0001 test aircraft was earmarked for a new role, of testing the technologies required for bringing the world’s first hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft to market by 2035. The A380 MSN0001 was expected to serve as a ZEROe (zero emission) flying laboratory, with fuel cells in the rear fuselage and an engine mounted on the port centre/rear fuselage side. The large size of the aircraft meant that it could easily accommodate the large flight test instrumentation required.
But in February 2025 Airbus announced that it had pushed back its 2035 target to fly hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft and had scrapped plans to test hydrogen propulsion systems on the modified A380. This left F-WWOW free to undertake new duties, which began on 14 March 2025.
Though A380 production ended in 2021, the type remains a key tool for several airlines – not least Emirates, which operates the largest fleet. Upgrades to extend the aircraft’s operational life are underway and there seems to be renewed interest in the A380, driven by demand for higher-capacity aircraft on the busiest routes.
