The world’s biggest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has landed in Sydney on its first commercial flight following a seven-hour journey from Singapore, ending the near four-decade reign as the world’s biggest airliner by the Boeing 747.

Singapore Airlines took delivery of the gigantic plane, which has been dubbed the Superjumbo, just over a week ago, with passengers buying seats in a charity auction on the internet. Though the plane can carry around 850 passengers, it took about 450 people to Sydney, with passengers paying between $560 and $100,380 to be on the inaugural flight.

The new behemoth of an aircraft was plagued by almost two years of delays, caused by a number of construction problems, but managed to take off in time. Virgin Atlantic, Sir Richard Branson’s airline, is a Superjumbo customer but the teething problems prompted it to defer its six aircraft order until 2013. Singapore Airlines is now set to take delivery of a further five A380s in 2008, out of its order of 19. In total, Airbus now has 165 firm orders for the A380, and 20 ‘commitments’ from 15 airlines.

One of the customers on the flight commented that ‘the space is bigger than anything you can imagine. I can look out the window to my right at the moment and I can see a wing that looks bigger than most ordinary planes’. The superjumbo’s wingspan is said to be almost the size of a football pitch.