JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – The largest commercial aeroplane, the A380 Airbus, landed in Johannesburg this morning after leaving from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport earlier in the day.
The Air France
flight is the first time an A380 has landed at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg and the airport needed to look at the amount of space it needed for taxiing about. Fortunately, the runways were already long enough, although the shoulders needed to be widened slightly to accommodate the A380’s large wingspan.
The extra capacity of the plane also means that there will be more baggage to be dealt with and potentially longer queues for passport control.
Air France first used the A380 on its Paris to New York flight route last November.
It’s not the first time the A380 has been to OR Tambo in Johannesburg. Airbus used the airport for testing on 2004. This was the first commercial flight.