A new Airbus A380 lands at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, March 19, 2007. The 555-seat double-decker behemoth, which has a wingspan the size of a football field, landed on U.S. soil for the first time March 19, with crowds turning out to witness the arrivals of the world's biggest passenger plane.(Xinhua Photo/Hou Jun) Photo Gallery>>>

The world's largest passenger plane made its debut in the United States Monday, as two of Airbus' A380 superjumbos headed for simultaneous landings in New York and Los Angeles.

The first trans-Atlantic flights for the 555-seat, double-decker plane are part of exercises to ensure that it is compatible with two major U.S. airports, which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to accommodate the giant plane.

Between them, those two facilities are spending about 300 million U.S. dollars to widen runways and provide special docking equipment for the plane, which has a wingspan almost the length of an American football field.

Airbus has spent more than 10 billion dollars developing the A380, which has a list price of about 319 million dollars. So far it has racked up 156 orders from 14 customers, but has yet to score an order from a U.S. airline.

Signing up a U.S. airline would be a huge financial and morale boost for Airbus, owned by Europe's EADS, which has been dragged into billion of dollars in losses and corporate turmoil by delays on the huge plane, which is now two years overdue.

The aircraft was designed to challenge Boeing Co.'s dominance in the very large plane market, which it has virtually had to itself with its long-running 747. The latest, stretched version of the 747 is actually longer than the A380, but the European plane towers over its rival and can accommodate 90 or so more passengers in a standard configuration.

According to Airbus, the A380 makes half the noise of a 747 and is more fuel efficient, which it hopes will appeal to airlines looking to make better returns from popular long-haul routes.