With the A380 getting on for 200 hours in the air and aircraft bearing airline liveries sitting in Toulouse it seems almost bizarre that not so long ago things like the upper-deck loading were being seriously mentioned by critics as show-stoppers.
I first wrote about this issue in March 2001 when Airbus had just persuaded FMC Technologies of Houston in the USA and Air Marrel of Saint Chamond, near Lyon in France to take on the challenge.
Both companies already made loaders but the A380 upper deck needs the scissoring mechanism to reach up to 8m (26ft) instead of a maximum of 5m (16ft) on existing aircraft.
As you can see in this new picture from Toulouse, at least one of them (not sure which is in the picture) has succeeded. You can read about FMC's work here.
Of course 8m is a long way to fall, and the A380 will undoubtedly present new challenges in ramp safety. My colleague David Learmount wrote extensively about that recently.
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