Recent weeks have also seen renewed hostilities over funding for the development of Airbus's new super-jumbo jet, the A3XX .

ECONOMIST: Trade

Kennedy airport, when an Air France Airbus A380 clipped the tail fins of a much smaller Comair flight CRJ700, observers and analysts have been asking questions about whether a similar accident could happen elsewhere, and just when a super-large jumbo jet is too big.

FORBES: How Big Is Too Big? The JFK Airbus Accident Prompts Questions

As soon as Airbus announced it was to embark on a project to develop the first "super" jumbo in 2001, it received an order for a private variant of the jet (then known by its codename of A3XX) from a client in the Middle East.

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