The construction of the Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane ever built, was photographed over a three year period.
Because of its extraordinary size, Airbus first had to construct the infrastructure: the building to house the Final Assembly Line, alterations to factories throughout Europe and the logistics of an extensive transportation network, including a purpose-built ship, made in Shanghai.
I was commissioned by Airbus to document every stage. Here the pictures are sequenced in a roughly chronological order and devided into sections: The construction of the Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Toulouse; the many factories throughout Europe, each making specific parts of the airplane; the transportation of the first parts to Toulouse; the assembly of the first plane; the 'Reveal'; the first flight and subsequent appearance at Airshows; and, finally, the 'Cold Test' in Arctic Canada.
