Airbus Beluga
The smiling whale — an outsize transporter with a grin painted on
Tail numbers F-GXLH · F-GXLG · F-GXLI · F-GXLJ · F-GXLN · F-GXLO · F-GSTC
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLH
Airbus's answer to the Dreamlifter, with 30% more hold than the original Beluga and a paint job that made it the most likable aircraft alive: a smiling whale face, chosen by Airbus employees in a company-wide vote. Six of them shuttle wings and fuselages between European plants.
The BelugaXL can swallow two A350 wings at once — the original Beluga could only manage one.
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLG
XL number one — the BelugaXL that flew first, in July 2018, and spent a year as the test aircraft before joining the shuttle run. Six of these whale-faced A330s now haul wings and fuselage sections between Airbus plants in France, Germany, Spain and the UK, and from mid-2027 they carry the whole load alone.
The smile was never in the plans: Airbus employees voted it on in 2017, from six livery options, and the whale face won by a landslide.
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLI
The third BelugaXL. The bulge up top is a cargo hold 7 metres across, loaded through a forehead door that swings up like a visor — the cockpit sits below it so the crew never has to move. Catch one between Toulouse, Hamburg, Bremen, Broughton and Saint-Nazaire, usually below 20,000 feet.
An XL carries roughly 50 tonnes but almost never fills its weight limit — the cargo is huge and light, so it runs out of room long before it runs out of lift.
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLJ
The fourth BelugaXL. Built from a stock A330-200 freighter and then rebuilt around it: new upper fuselage, a lowered cockpit, a fatter tail with extra fins for stability. The result is one of the strangest silhouettes in the sky, and one of the most recognisable.
Airbus calls the XL’s route network the "Beluga Line" — it runs on a timetable, like an airline nobody can buy a ticket on.
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLN
The fifth BelugaXL. These airframes exist to carry one pair of A350 wings at a time from Broughton in Wales to Toulouse, a job the original Beluga could only do one wing at a time. Spot the whale eye painted above the cockpit and you have the right plane.
The six XLs replaced five original Belugas — but moved so much more per flight that the old fleet became surplus almost overnight.
Airbus BelugaXL F-GXLO
The sixth and last BelugaXL, delivered in 2023 to complete the fleet. From mid-2027 these six are the only Belugas flying, so every one you catch is a working Airbus artery — a wing or a fuselage section is almost certainly inside.
Loading an XL takes a purpose-built dock at each plant that mates to the open nose, so the cargo rolls straight in without a crane.
Airbus Beluga ST F-GSTC
The last original Beluga still working. Five A300-600STs carried Airbus parts around Europe for three decades; by 2026 one sister was stored, two more retired, one sits in the Aeroscopia museum in Toulouse, and ST number three flies on alone until the XLs take over for good in mid-2027. Catch the shorter nose and the plain white paint before it is gone.
The original Beluga once carried a Delacroix painting from the Louvre to Tokyo — the canvas was too big for any other aircraft to fly flat.
Quick answers
What are the tail numbers of Airbus Beluga?
F-GXLH (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GXLG (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GXLI (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GXLJ (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GXLN (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GXLO (Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL), F-GSTC (Airbus A300-608ST Beluga).
What kind of aircraft is Airbus Beluga?
Airbus A330-743L BelugaXL, Airbus A300-608ST Beluga.
Are they still flying?
7 of 7 are active.
The type
More giant freighters
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