The Airbus A300 made its first flight in 1972 as the company's first commercial airliner.
The A300 prototype flew on 28 October 1972 from Toulouse. It was the product of Airbus Industrie, the European consortium established two years earlier to develop a competitive large passenger jet.
The aircraft combined a wide-body cabin with two engines, an arrangement that was relatively unconventional for a large airliner at the time. Its development helped establish Airbus's production-sharing model, with major components manufactured in different European countries and brought together for final assembly.
The A300 entered service with Air France in 1974. Although later Airbus families became much more numerous, the A300 remains the foundational commercial aircraft of the company. The A310 was derived from it, while the A320 introduced a different narrow-body market and cockpit philosophy.