An Air France KLM flight attendant poses at the first-class cabin of new Airbus A380 aircraft during a hand-over ceremony at the manufacturer's site in Finkenwerder near Hamburg October 30, 2009.(REUTERS)

PARIS, Nov. 1 (AFP) – Air France on Friday became the first European airline to take delivery of the new Airbus A380 superjumbo passenger jet, which it says will make great savings in tough economic times.

The French flag carrier received the huge craft at the Airbus plant in the northern German city of Hamburg in a ceremony and then flew it to Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport.

Its first commercial flight is scheduled for November 20, from Paris to New York.

The director of Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, told AFP that the A380 would enable it to save money by running fewer flights on long-haul routes.

''To New York, we can remove one Boeing 777-200 and one Airbus A340 and go from five flights a day to four,'' he said.

''We will be able to use a plane that costs 20 percent less to run than the two others. In other words, we will save 15 million euros a year with an A380.''

Air France has ordered 12 of the A380 model, but like other airlines has postponed the purchase of some of them due to the economic slowdown.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Thursday that an upturn in global air traffic stalled in September due to a ''pause'' in the economic recovery, with demand only up slightly compared to September 2008.

It has forecast that airlines will lose 11 billion dollars in 2009.

Three other airlines outside Europe have already taken delivery of the 330-million-dollar A380 – Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Australian carrier Qantas.

From Hamburg, it was reported that Airbus might delay delivery of one or two of the 13 superjumbo A380s scheduled for this year until January 2010, the European planemaker told Reuters on Friday.

''We are still aiming for 13 (A380) deliveries but one or two could come in January,'' Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier told Reuters on the sidelines of a ceremony for the delivery of Air France-KLM's first A380.

''Everything will depend on airlines' capacity to take these planes at the end of the year,'' he said.