Airbus A380
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50 free Airbus A380 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger airliner ever built, a double-decker so big that airports had to rethink gates, taxiways and boarding bridges before it could visit. Only a select list of airports around the world has ever welcomed it, which is why travellers and plane spotters still look up where the giant flies. This quiz follows the aircraft from factory to runway: where its parts were made and how they reached the assembly line, the test flights that proved it in heat, cold and thin air, the airlines that bought it, and the routes and airports where it made its name. Along the way come the cabin luxuries, the mid-air scares and the business decisions that ended production. The opening questions are for anyone who has ever watched one of these giants taxi past a terminal window, while later ones reward aviation fans who know their test sites and order books. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which first-class luxury, rationed to five minutes each, did Emirates add to its A380s in 2008?
A shower
A shower spa on each Emirates A380 draws on 2.5 tonnes of water carried aloft, and a timer limits every first-class passenger to five minutes.
Q 02Which word do A380 pilots add to their callsign to warn controllers of the jet's powerful wake?
Super
Super tells air traffic control to leave extra space behind an A380, whose wake can upset a following plane. Other large airliners say heavy instead.
Q 03Around 2007 the A380 was considered as a replacement for which famous American government aircraft?
Air Force One
Air Force One could have been a double-decker Airbus, but the company declined to bid in 2009 because assembling only three planes in the US made no financial sense.
Q 04After the A380's first flight, test pilot Jacques Rosay said the giant jet handled like what?
A bicycle
A bicycle was his comparison, a striking verdict on the largest passenger airliner ever built, which flew that day with a crew of just six.
Q 05How did passengers obtain their seats on the very first A380 commercial flight in October 2007?
A charity auction
A charity auction sold the seats online, with winning bids running from $560 all the way up to $100,380.
Q 06What forced Qantas Flight 32, an A380 carrying 469 people, to turn back soon after takeoff in 2010?
An engine explosion
An engine explosion four minutes into the flight scattered metal over houses on the Indonesian island of Batam, yet nobody on board or on the ground was hurt.
Q 07Airport gate limits forced Airbus to keep which A380 dimension about ten metres below the ideal?
The wingspan
The wingspan stops just short of 80 metres so the jet fits a standard airport gate box, a compromise that costs about 10% in fuel efficiency.
Q 08What sets the Airbus A380's upper deck apart from the one on a Boeing 747?
It runs the full length
It runs the full length of the fuselage, making the A380 the only jet airliner with two complete passenger decks, linked by a stairway at each end.
Q 09Which Gulf airline sold The Residence, a three-room A380 suite with its own bedroom and bathroom?
Etihad Airways
Etihad Airways launched The Residence in 2014 as the only three-room cabin on any airline, with a double bed and, at first, a personal butler.
Q 10Airbus jumped from A340 to A380 partly because 8 is seen as what in many East Asian countries?
A lucky number
A lucky number in the Asian markets Airbus was courting, 8 also echoes the cabin's cross-section, with one deck stacked on the other.
Q 11Which airline, first to fly the A380, fitted suites whose centre pairs can join into a double bed?
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first A380 in October 2007, and each of its partly enclosed suites paired a leather seat with a separate bed.
Q 12The first A380 passenger flight took off in October 2007 bound for which Australian city?
Sydney
Sydney greeted the double-decker on 25 October 2007, just ten days after Airbus had handed the aircraft over to its first airline.
Q 13In which French city was every A380 put together, in a hall named after Jean-Luc Lagardère?
Toulouse
Toulouse is also where the first A380 prototype was unveiled in January 2005 and where it took off on its maiden flight three months later.
Q 21Qantas launched its first A380 service in October 2008, from Melbourne to which American city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles later drew British Airways A380s too: in 2014 two daily double-deckers from London replaced three Boeing 777 flights.
Q 22All Nippon Airways painted its three A380s as sea turtles to fly from Tokyo to which holiday spot?
Honolulu
Honolulu was the route the three jets were ordered for, and their Flying Honu livery takes its name from the Hawaiian word for sea turtle.
Q 23Broughton, the factory that built the wings of every A380, lies in which part of the United Kingdom?
Wales
Wales sent each finished wing by barge down the River Dee to the docks at Mostyn, where a ship collected it for the voyage to France.
Q 14Once assembled, each A380 flew to which German port city to be painted and given its cabin?
Hamburg
Hamburg handled the painting and cabin fitting, and airlines from Europe and the Middle East collected their finished jets there.
Q 15Which Gulf city's airport opened Concourse A in 2013 with 20 gates, every one able to take an A380?
Dubai
Dubai is home to Emirates, by far the biggest A380 customer, and had already spent $230 million adapting its airport for the jet.
Q 16At which London airport has the A380 cost less to land than a Boeing 777 because it is quieter?
Heathrow
Heathrow builds noise into its landing fees, and a 2017 analysis found the quiet A380 saved several thousand dollars a landing compared with a 777.
Q 17Which social space do Emirates A380 business-class passengers find at the very back of the aircraft?
An onboard bar
An onboard bar made it into service, unlike the gyms, casinos and beauty parlours that early A380 marketing touted.
Q 18Which problem delayed the first A380 deliveries by two years and nearly doubled development costs?
Electrical wiring
Electrical wiring was the culprit: each jet holds 530 km of it, and factories in different countries used mismatched versions of the design software.
Q 19Which company built the Trent 900 engines that powered the very first A380 to fly?
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce first ran the engine in 2003 and test-flew it under the wing of an Airbus A340 nearly a year before the A380 itself took to the air.
Q 20Emirates began flying the A380 in August 2008 on a route from its home base to which American city?
New York
New York welcomed the second airline to operate the A380, less than a year after the type had first carried paying passengers.
Q 24A380 sections were built in France, Germany, Britain and which fourth country, where its horizontal tailplane was made?
Spain
Spain supplied the belly and tail sections from a plant in Cádiz, and a ship named Ciudad de Cádiz was built to carry such pieces to France.
Q 25How did the largest A380 sections travel the final stretch from Langon to the assembly hall?
By road convoy
By road convoy, mostly at night: the route was chosen to avoid every bridge overhead, and the convoys laid over by day in secure parking areas built for them.
Q 26Barges carried A380 sections through the centre of Bordeaux and upstream to Langon on which river?
Garonne
The Garonne passage had to be timed with the tide: barges could slip under the old stone bridge in Bordeaux only at low water.
Q 27In the A380 evacuation trial, 873 people left a dark cabin in 78 seconds despite which handicap?
Half the exits blocked
Half the exits blocked, picked at random, still left time to spare: 853 passengers and 20 crew beat the 90-second limit by 12 seconds.
Q 28Engine Alliance, builder of the A380's GP7200, pairs General Electric with which rival engine maker?
Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney shaped the low-pressure sections from its PW4000 experience, while the core of the engine was derived from the GE90.
Q 29Under which working name was the Airbus A380 developed before its formal launch in December 2000?
A3XX
A3XX was the label from 1994, and one early idea for it joined two A340 fuselages side by side instead of stacking decks.
Q 30Why can an A380 weighing over 500 tonnes use most runways without the pavement being reinforced?
It has 22 wheels
It has 22 wheels to spread the load, so it presses less on each patch of ground. Airbus proved the point by towing a 540-tonne test rig over pavement fitted with sensors.