Talk about an aviation buff. A passenger reportedly bid over $100,000 for a luxury seat on the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380, on Singapore Airlines. The inaugural round-trip will run from Singapore to Sydney and back. Singapore Airlines opted for an aircraft with a 480 seat configuration instead of the 555.

The auction was conducted through eBay's Singaporean Web site, and the proceeds will go to charity.—Gregory Mone

(Image credit: Airbus)

Courtesy airliners.net

Having passed its emergency-evacuation test last weekend, the Airbus A380 is officially certified to haul a staggering 853 passengers—that's how many people safely escaped a darkened test aircraft in less than 80 seconds. The A380's capacity puts it well past its next-largest rival, Boeing's venerable 747, which has held the title of world's largest active commercial jet for almost 36 years. When the A380 takes to the skies on its first commercial flight with Singapore Airlines later this year, it will probably max out at around 500 people (800-plus is for a nightmarish single-class setup).

So how does an aircraft this big get itself built, let alone get in the air?  Check out this cool time-lapse video of an A380 assembly to find out, and stick around for the end—the double-time painting process is amazing to watch. —John Mahoney

There were acrobats from the Cirque du Soleil, a mechanical objet d'art that looked like a mad inventor's spaceship, and a voluble computer-generated wizard that bore a disturbing resemblance to a bathrobe-clad George Carlin-the ceremony in Toulouse, France, that marked the completion of Airbus's first A380 was nothing if not pomp-filled. But when four kids finally tugged on a huge tasseled cord and the curtain fell to reveal the largest jetliner ever built, the spectacle was just beginning.