Airbus begins retirement of A300ST Belugas

On 29 January 2026, Airbus began the official retirement of its original Belugas, the Airbus A300-600ST. Beluga number 5, F-GSTF (796) ferried on this day from Bordeaux to the manufacturer's site at Hawarden in the UK. Here, the freighter will be converted and put on display as an educational center.

Originally, Airbus planned to make the original Belugas available for charter operations and put them in a dedicated subsidiary called Airbus Beluga Transport. This company was established in January 2024 but was closed already a year later as regular commercial operations proved difficult due to the special equipment needed to load and offload the A300-600STs.

The four remaining operational aircraft were transferred to the Airbus Transport International-fleet and three of them were used alongside the successor of the A300-600ST, the A330-700L, also known as the BelugaXL.

Airbus launched the A300-600ST project as a joint-venture between Aérospatiale and DASA in August 1991. It did so after evaluating various aircraft like the Antonov An-124, An-225, Ilyushin Il-86, Boeing B747, B767, Lockheed C-5, and McDonnell-Douglas C-17 as a potential successor to its fleet of four Super Guppy-aircraft. However, all these aircraft had a lack of internal space needed to carry fuselages and wings. Boeing did offer a converted Boeing B767 but Airbus felt it would be strange to source a competitor aircraft and started working on a purpose-built aircraft based on the A300-600R.

The joint-venture was named Super Airbus Transport International and it began working on the design. Airbus invested $1 billion into the program, including the design and building of five aircraft as well as the needed cargo loading infrastructure.

Production of the first A300-600ST (Super Transporter) began in September 1992, and first flight was conducted on 13 September 1994. Certification and entry into service happened a year later.

In the late 90s, with Airbus products growing larger and heavier, Airbus began investigating conversion of larger aircraft into Super Transporters. Both the A330 and A340 were considered. It took until November 2014 when the manufacturer announced the launch of the A330-700L, a new BelugaXL based on the A330. This version flew for the first time on 19 July 2018 and entered service in January 2020.

Airbus produced five A300-600STs. The current status of these aircraft is:

• F-GSTA/1 (655), first flight 13 September 1994, stored at Bordeaux since 29 April 2021.
• F-GSTB/2 (751), first flight 26 March 1996, stored at Bordeaux since 18 December 2025.
• F-GSTC/3 (765), first flight 21 April 1997, still operational today.
• F-GSTD/4 (776), first flight 9 June 1998, stored at Toulouse-Blagnac on 17 September 2025 and destined for Aeroscopia Museum.
• F-GSTF/5 (796), first flight 12 December 2000, now at Hawarden for display.

Photo by Airbus.