'Superjumbo' lands safely at Glasgow Airport

The world's largest commercial passenger aircraft has landed in Glasgow, signalling the start of regular services to and from Dubai.

The Airbus A380 touched down at Glasgow Airport at 19:45 on Tuesday, after more than £8m was spent to prepare for its arrival.

Also known as the superjumbo, the double-decker jet, was welcomed by scores of onlookers.

A piper was playing on the tarmac to welcome the plane.

• How Glasgow got ready for the superjumbo

The Airbus first paid Glasgow a visit five years ago, marking 10 years of flights from the city by the Emirates airline.

Since then the airport has made significant changes to accommodate regular flights, including alterations to the airfield layout and the building of Scotland's only triple air bridge.

Scotland's only triple air bridge had to be built to accommodate the A380

It has been designed to get hundreds of passengers on and off the giant as quickly and safely as possible.

After Tuesday's landing, the superjumbo will be seen flying to and from Glasgow on a daily basis.

In recent years Emirates have scheduled twice-a-day services by Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

The huge double-decker can carry around 550 passengers

But engineering works at the airline's Dubai hub are closing one of its runways and reducing the number of possible aircraft movements.

So, for the time being, a single A380 flight will replace the two current Glasgow services.

The A380, which costs $400m on average, has a maximum takeoff weight of 575 tonnes - the same as about 45 double-decker buses.

It can carry about 550 passengers - but with capacity for more - over a range of 8,000 nautical miles.