Airbus A300

The Airbus A300 is a wide-body airliner built by the European consortium Airbus Industrie, the company's first production aircraft and the world's first twin-engine wide-body airliner, manufactured from 1971 to 2007. Built to prove that a twin-engine design could serve routes long dominated by three- and four-engine wide-bodies, the A300 first flew on 28 October 1972 and entered commercial service with launch customer Air France on 23 May 1974, facing slow initial sales before proving itself operationally and winning sustained orders. A total of 561 A300s were delivered before production ended, and the type's success established Airbus as a genuine competitor to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in the wide-body market.