TOULOUSE, Jan 18: Plane maker Airbus threw a spectacular party on Tuesday for the world's largest airliner, the A380 - overweight, over budget and yet to fly, but hailed by its makers as a major European feat that will reshape aviation.

French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero watched as Airbus offered a first glimpse of the twin-deck jetliner in new house colours.

The largest civil airliner ever built hatched from the wings of a butterfly-like object in a theatrical and ethereal ceremony at its final assembly plant in Toulouse, south western France.

"Under the name of Airbus, Europe has written one of the most beautiful pages of its history," Airbus chief Noel Forgeard told 5,000 guests seated in the world's largest aircraft hangar.

Describing the project as "an immense European success", Mr Chirac called the new machine a "cruise ship of the skies". The message will not be lost on Boeing, whose 747 jumbo flies as the world's only passenger double-decker for now, and whose allies privately mock Mr Forgeard's A380 as "Noel's Ark".

The mammoth A380 has room for 70 cars to park on its wings and looks rather like the hump-backed Boeing 747 but with the top section stretching all the way back to the tail.

Airlines have committed almost $40 billion to buying the 555-seat double-decker super jumbo, expecting it to lower operating costs and boost profits flattened by high oil prices and a slowdown in global aviation and tourism since 2001.

"This is a celebration after six or seven years of very hard (work) for thousands of people," said Robert Nuttall, vice-president for marketing at engine maker Rolls-Royce.

"It's also a bit of a coming out party for an airlines industry coming out of a very, very hard time after 9/11." Billed by Mr Blair as a symbol of European cooperation, the plane boasts a more commercial future than the last European aviation project to get as much publicity - the Anglo-French Concorde.

The 1960s project gave birth to a plane as sleek and uneconomical as the A380 is obese yet potentially profitable. Forgeard predicted Airbus would sell 700 to 750 of the planes, which cost 260 million dollars to buy and boast a 15 percent gain in costs per seat-mile compared to the Boeing 747-400.

It already has 149 orders or commitments from 14 airlines for the aircraft which is due to take its first test flight in early April. It is due to enter service next year.

Forgeard confirmed talks to sell A380 planes to China and said he was confident of a deal by Easter, or late March. Deutsche Lufthansa chief Wolfgang Mayrhuber said he expected the airline to raise its order for 15 planes.

COSTS: The plane is costing Airbus and its shareholders EADS, the European aerospace group, and BAE Systems some 12 billion euros to develop, including 1.45 billion euros of cost overruns linked in part to efforts to keep its weight down.