- Who
- Airbus A380-800
- Where
- France (Toulouse)
- When
The heaviest passenger aircraft by take-off weight is the A380-800, a twin-deck, long-haul airliner built by European aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The A380-800, specifically the upgraded "WV008" model introduced in November 2012, has a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 575,000 kg (1,267,658 lb). The largest Boeing 747 variant, by comparison, has a take-off weight of 447,696 kg (987,000 lb).
The only aircraft with a greater MTOW (640,000 kg; 1,410,958 lb) than the A380-800 is the Antonov An-225 "Mriya" – a heavy-lift cargo aircraft built in the late 1980s to carry equipment related to the Soviet "Buran" space shuttle programme. The An-225 is still operational as a commercial cargo aircraft. Only two of these non-production airframes were ever ordered, of which only one was finished.
An even larger variant of the A380, called the "A380plus" was proposed by Airbus in 2017. This model would have an MTOW of 578,000 kg (1,274,271 lb). At the time of the initial announcement, production of the A380plus was scheduled to start in 2020. The creation of this new variant was always going to be dependent on interest from airline operators, however, and reports suggest there haven't been many takers.
