FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- It may trail the historic impact of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, but the Spirit of St. Louis also did not have a wingspan wider than a football field or space for more than 500 passengers.

For plane builder Airbus and German airline Lufthansa AG, the A380's first flight to North America on Monday is a chance to show off the superjumbo to potential U.S. buyers and to the airports they hope will be flight bases for the double-decker jet.

"We're talking about an airplane that is representing aviation in the 21st century in terms of efficiency," said Jens Bischoff, Lufthansa's vice president for the Americas. "Of course it is not just a test flight. We're going with a fully loaded plane into Washington and New York and hope to optimize all the opportunities."

For Airbus, which has been beset by management and financial crises -- including a two-year delay to the A380 that wiped more than euro5 billion (US$6.61 billion) off profit forecasts -- the flight is a chance to prove that the plane will be ready when the first deliveries are made in October to Singapore airlines.

Lufthansa Chief Pilot Juergen Raps, who has flown the A380 before, said that despite the superjumbo's size, it was nimble and responsive.

"If I were to compare it to driving, you would think this would be like driving a truck or a bus," he said inside the plane's cockpit. "It's like driving a Ferrari."

The air show Monday begins at Frankfurt International Airport when the 73-meter-long (more than 239 foot-long) plane takes off as Lufthansa Flight 8940 at 9 a.m. (0800GMT) for the eight-hour flight to New York's JFK Airport, scheduled to land at 12:30 p.m. (1630GMT). Onboard will be 550 people, including four pilots, four Airbus crew members, 23 Lufthansa cabin crew and 519 passengers, mostly Airbus and Lufthansa employees along with some reporters.

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