page_title: Airbus Beluga
section_title: Operational history
hierarchical_section_title: Airbus Beluga / Operational history
caption_attribution_description: Hamburg-Finkenwerder
context_page_description: The Airbus A300-600ST, or Beluga, is a version of the standard A300-600 wide-body airliner modified to carry aircraft parts and outsize cargo. It received the official name of Super Transporter early on; however, the name Beluga, a whale it resembles, gained popularity and has since been officially adopted. The Beluga XL, based on the Airbus A330 with similar modifications and dimensions, was developed by Airbus to replace the type in January 2020.
context_section_description: In January 1996, the Beluga was formally placed into dedicated service, ferrying components from various aerospace sites to the final assembly lines in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany. On 24 October 1997, the last of Airbus Industrie's Super Guppy freighters was retired and its outsize cargo mission from that point onwards being exclusively performed by the new A300-600ST fleet. In 1997, the second year of Beluga operations, the fleet accumulated in excess of 2,500 flight hours across more than 1,400 flights. By 2012, the fleet was performing roughly 5,000 flight hours per year; Airbus expected this figure to double by 2017.
  Since entering service, the Beluga has been subject to several infrastructure upgrades. In 2011, Pau Pyrénées Airport, a site routinely visited by Belugas, became the first airport in Europe to deploy the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, which accurately guides the Beluga and other aircraft during landing. In 2015, a dedicated Beluga loading station was opened at Hawarden Airport, preventing high winds from disrupting future operations.
  In addition to its primary supply duties to Airbus' production facilities, Belugas have often performed charter flights for various purposes. In 1997, ATI claimed that it had to reject eight out of ten requests for commercial Beluga flights, the fleet being able to spare only 130 flight hours for such duties that year. But as more Beluga aircraft were put into service, availability increased drastically, rising to 600 flight hours in 1998 and around 1,000 flight hours in 1999; this effectively enabled one of the five Beluga aircraft to spend much of its operating hours performing charter flights. Amongst the early customers chartering Beluga flights was Boeing.
  In June 1997, a world record was set for the most voluminous payload to be carried by an aircraft when a Beluga was used to transport a chemical tank for a merchant vessel from Clermont-Ferrand to Le Havre, France. In February 2003, a single Beluga performed the farthest distance charter flight ever, having flown for 25 hours (not including refueling stops) to transport two complete NHI NH90 helicopters along with a single Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter from Marseille, France to Melbourne, Australia, for the Avalon Airshow.
  In 1999, a Beluga carried a large painting, Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, which had hung in the Louvre in Paris since 1874. It was flown from Paris to Tokyo via Bahrain and Kolkata in about 20 hours. The large canvas, measuring 2.99 metres (9.81 ft) high by 3.62 metres (11.88 ft) long, was too large to fit into a Boeing 747. It was transported in the vertical position inside a special pressurized container provided with isothermal protection and an anti-vibration device.
  In 2004, a Beluga was used to deliver relief supplies to the Indian Ocean region following widespread devastation of coastal areas by a major tsunami. In 2005, the Beluga was employed to transport humanitarian aid and medical supplies from the United Kingdom and France to the Gulf Coast of the United States, in support of disaster-relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
  The Beluga has seen recurrent use to transport bulky objects, including vehicles, for various different space programs. In 2001, sections of the unmanned Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) space vehicle were transported by a Beluga from Turin, Italy to Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 2004, multiple Beluga flights were made to Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, to deliver Astrium-built satellites. In 2009, a Beluga was used to convey the Tranquility module of the International Space Station from Turin to Kennedy Space Center, United States.
  A two-bay loading dock was opened in Toulouse in 2019, receiving 85-100 flights a week, as the five A300-600STs are operated 7,600 hours a year together.
  It encloses the forward section including the open large cargo door for less weather restrictions and faster 1h 20min turnaround down from 2h 30min.
caption: Front view of an inflight Beluga showing its bulbous fuselage
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