An Airbus Industrie A-380 touched down at New York's Kennedy International on Aug. 1, marking the first revenue flight of the giant, double-decker commercial transport on U.S. soil. The Emirates aircraft, carrying 489 passengers landed on time after a 13-1/2-hour flight from Dubai. Emirates, owned by the government of Dubai, is the second airline to put the A380 into service, following Singapore Airlines which started A-380 flights to Sydney in October. The plane visited New York and Los Angeles in March 2007 as part of route-testing, but the early August flight was the first regularly scheduled arrival of an A-380 in the United States. About 20 airports worldwide can handle the A-380, which needs extra-wide runways to accommodate its wingspan and two-tiered facilities for loading/unloading passengers. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spent $179 million upgrading Kennedy International to handle the A-380.