Airbus' Beluga: Giant of the skies set to get even larger

The Airbus A300-600ST, popularly known as the "Beluga" because of its resemblance to the white Arctic whale, is the European plane manufacturer's super-sized transporter jet, CNN reports. Five of these enormous planes make more than 60 flights each week, carrying parts for all of Airbus' planes from manufacturing sites -- wings in the UK, tails in Spain, for example -- to the final assembly facilities in either Toulouse, Hamburg or Tianjin. The planes have been in service since 1994, but are in need of reinforcements. Since the plane's inaugural flight, Airbus's production rates have increased five fold, so a new fleet is planned to keep up with demand, especially with the new A350XWB plane now entering service. "The need for the new Beluga comes with the increase in production rates and to get extra capacity on top of this fleet of five aircrafts," says Stephane Gosselin, head of Airbus Transport International. "So initially there will be a mixed fleet use of both new Beluga and old Beluga. And then the second need was as well to anticipate replacement of an aging fleet." Read more