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At Airbus‘ 2025 annual press conference, the planemaker’s CEO, Guillaume Faury, spoke about the future plausibility of using the gigantic A380. In response to a question by Simple Flying, Faury revealed that the giant aircraft will still fly with the open rotor engine concept, but the European aerospace giant has not made a decision about its wider use as an aviation testbed.
The Airbus A380 is the largest commercial airliner ever built. While the fleet as a whole remains fairly young, a number of aircraft have already been stored, retired, or even scrapped. Airbus maintains the original testbed aircraft, MSN 1, with the registration F-WWOW, though it hasn’t flown since July 2025.
The Open Rotor Engine Concept Will Fly On The Airbus A380
During a Q&A session after Airbus’ 2025 full-year results presentation, Guillaume Faury took a moment to explain to Simple Flying what to expect from the open rotor engine project that is being carried out in conjunction with CFM. Faury told Simple Flying,
“It is still the plan to fly the open rotor engine. It is still the plan to fly it on the A380 as it was indicated before. I don’t have the detailed [timeline] in mind and I would be too incorrect so I will not dare give you a date. But we are preparing this, so it’s starting to be something now close to us.”
As Faury explained, it is not clear exactly when the A380 will take flight with the open rotor engine. However, work on the project is progressing. Airbus is working on ground tests, including low-speed and high-speed wind tunnel testing, before trialing the engine in a real-life flight environment.
Could The Airbus A380 Be Used For Future Test Flights?
Faury also took the time to speak about the future of the Airbus A380 as a testbed aircraft for Airbus after the open rotor tests. Essentially a decision has not been made either way at this point. On this Faury remarked,
“[Regarding] the future use of the A380, I’m not sure that we’ve taken a decision. It will be used for the open rotor testing. This is the use we’re happy to do with it. Beyond this work, I don’t know.”
However, he did elaborate on some of the pros and cons of the gigantic aircraft for testing new technologies. On the plus side, the sheer size of the aircraft means it can safely test large engines. However the size of the aircraft directly translates to increased costs to run such a program. Airbus has already scaled back ambitions to also test hydrogen propulsion on an A380. On this, Faury remarked,
“It’s a convenient testbed because it’s really big and you can test large engines that still remain small compared to the size of the aircraft. In terms of safety and capabilities of testing, that’s really convenient. That being said, it’s a very large and expensive aircraft so we’ll see moving forward what we do with our testbeds in general. Short term, we do the test for the open rotor as planned.”
Why The Airbus A380 Is The Perfect Testbed For Evolving Engine Technology
Airbus has used MSN1 to test engine technology for some time, and now a second A380 testbed will join the fleet.
Other Quadjets Are Used For Engine Tests
Airbus isn’t alone in using quad-jets for engine tests. Rolls-Royce used to fly a Boeing 747-200 as an engine testbed, though that has now been retired. The enginemaker had intended to turn a Qantas 747-400 into a testbed, but scrapped these plans in September 2022.
GE Aerospace currently operates a Boeing 747-400 as an engine testbed. This plane was used to test the GE9X which powers the Boeing 777X. Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney has two Boeing 747SPs that it uses for testing aircraft engines. These aircraft are registered in Canada.
