The whale-shaped Airbus Beluga XL has the world’s strangest plane interior
- Airbus Beluga XL has an interior that needs to be seen to be believed
- The Airbus A330-743L is used to tranbsport parts across Europe
- The huge cargo can be loaded and ready for takeoff in just 60 minutes
Published on Nov 10, 2023 at 6:37 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Nov 13, 2023 at 2:13 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Alessandro Renesis
While Airbus halted production earlier this year, the Airbus Beluga XL is still being used to transport cargo around Europe.
And the cavernous interior of the Airbus A330-743L needs to be seen to be believed.
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Airbus is made up of Spanish, German, British and French companies under one umbrella.
That means manufacturing is also scattered and must be transported aboard the Airbus Beluga XL before being attached to the fusilage.
“Welcome to the biggest front door ever,” Paul Kilmister, UK head of supply chain for Airbus, said.
“This is insane – it looks absolutely enormous,” says Nicky Kelvin, editor at large for The Points Guy.
The doors are a mind-blowing 7.5m high at the opening and 8.1m wide.
And while the interiors are less comfortable, homely and entertaining than other jets we’ve seen – it’s certainly impressive.
In terms of capacity, that enables the Airbus Beluga XL to transport “two Airbus A350-1000 wings straight down the middle”.
The items to be carried are moved on rails until they are lined up with the Beluga interface rack.
There are then tracks that slowly move the heavy and precious cargo inside before the door is locked.
And it’s a comically small button that swings the giant “jaws” shut.
The huge cargo can turned around “from trucks to chocks” in just 60 minutes.
Once aboard there is a narrow corridor of several single-file seats leading to the cockpit.
The captain explains that aside from the constantly changing “wallpaper” the craft is seriously high performance.
That allows for short landings and takeoff.
And, contrary to what you might think, there’s apparently “not a big difference” to how it flies when it’s fully loaded and empty.
The parts are then transported from the Airbus facility that manufactures them in Broughton in North Wales.
They’re taken where they need to be in Europe for Airbus with a wink of an eye from the cheeky whale face on the plane’s exterior.
It’s powered by powerful and efficient Rolls-Royce Trent 700 turbofan engines rated at 71,000lb st each.
But despite the exquisite engineering, just like the massive Boeing Airlifter and other giant aircrafts, it’s hard to understand the physics of it getting off the ground.
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All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
