Asiana Gets First Airbus A380 Jumbo Jet

An Asiana A330 in Seattle

Asiana Airlines, one of South Korea’s two major airlines, received its first Airbus A380 jumbo jet Monday, making the carrier the 11th operator of the world’s largest aircraft.

The double-deck jet is the world’s largest commercial plane flying today.  It was delivered to the airline’s chairman, Park Sam Koo, by Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier, in Toulouse, France.

Asiana has five additional A380s on order.  Each is powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines.  The planes are being delivered in a three-class configuration, with a total capacity of 495 passengers.  There are 12 first-class First Suites, 66 fully lie-flat business-class seats in Business Samarium, and 417 seats in coach.

The airline plans to use the new plane on familiarization routes from Seoul to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, and will then deploy it on the Seoul-Los Angeles route.

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine plane that had its first flight in 2005 and entered commercial service in October 2007.  A typical configuration is 525 seats and the plane can hold as many as 853 in an all-coach configuration.

Asiana also has 30 of the new and more efficient Airbus A350 XWB jets on order.  It currently operates A330 and A320 planes on its routes.

CORRECTION – May 26, 2014 11:50 a.m. EDT

An earlier version of this article stated that Asiana had an all-Airbus fleet.  The error was introduced in copyediting and has since been corrected.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)