Beluga Airbus: Is this the world’s ‘strangest-looking’ plane?

This plane is not like the others. Photo / 123rf

Planes more or less look the same. Most are shades of white, off-white, white-ish. Perhaps a bold-coloured airline logo provides a wiggle of excitement. When it comes to shape, to the amateur’s eye there’s even less diversity.

One European jet, however, hits different. It looks like a whale.

Dubbed one of the world’s “strangest-looking” planes, the Airbus BelugaXL recently made headlines after a video captured it landing at London’s Heathrow Airport.

On Monday at 11.04am local time, the aircraft resembling a marine animal arrived in the England’s capital from Toulouse in France with replacements parts to fix a damaged British Airways jet that had suffered a minor collision in April, reported the BBC.

The widely circulated footage posted to YouTube by FlightFocus365 shows a profile view of the plane, which is primarily used to transport cargo, descending before it smoothly landed on the runway.

There are no windows. But it does have a painted beluga eye, a nose shaped like a beluga’s nose, and a beluga-looking melon in place of a plane forehead.

Viewers took to social media to comment on the peculiar appearance of the aircraft and to assert if they loved it or hated it.

“Absolute unit of a forehead,” one wrote on Redditor.

“Ok but can we MAKE these into passenger planes because I would 100% ride a whale plane,” wrote a fan of the jet on Instagram.

Another remarked, “It’s like somebody put a handsome squidward filter on it”.

Others suggested the plane looked “more like a dolphin” than a beluga.

Meanwhile, at our London Office...

My co-worker Mr. King got a fantastic view of the @Airbus Beluga landing at @HeathrowAirport. I am not jealous at alllllll. https://t.co/wkbAcfxmD9 pic.twitter.com/E9l9ycxfNm

— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) September 9, 2024

Aerospace corporation Airbus initially designed the Airbus BelugaST (Super Transporter), before building the Airbus BelugaXL to increase its transport capability of wider cargo loads in late 2014.

Phasing out the older BelugaST, there are currently six BelugaXLs operating across 11 destinations in Europe, making it a rare aircraft to spot.

Its unique, wide-body shape is not just to turn heads. It allows it to carry more weight with cargo and the Beluga is currently one of the world’s largest cargo-carrying aircraft.

It is usually found at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport and Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport, where Airbus puts together parts of its aircraft.