Workers from several countries joined the Toulouse launch

The wings for the 555-seater plane are built at the Airbus plant in Broughton.

A lavish ceremony with French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was held in Toulouse on Friday.

However, it is in danger of being overshadowed by the continuing row over dredging the Port of Mostyn.

The dredging of the River Dee is needed so the wings can be transported from Flintshire to France 24 hours a day, but permission has been refused on environmental grounds.

Journey from drawing board to production: See the pictures

It is now almost eight weeks since regulators the Environment Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Welsh Assembly Government began their quest for an alternative to dredging.

It had been expected to take two weeks and managers at Airbus in Broughton have warned that the delay could disrupt production of the plane.

The first set of wings left Broughton for France on a small barge last month.

The first wing was lifted onto a huge transporter, with a 96-wheel trailer, then it travelled along a special track to the River Dee where it was loaded onto the barge.

The plane will be 49 m long, 250 m wide and 46 m tall

The workforce at Broughton has spent several years designing the wings, which span 80 metres.

The superjumbo is due to go into passenger service in 2006 and Sir Richard Branson's airline Virgin Atlantic is one of 11 carriers to have ordered a total of 129 of the new planes.

Other customers for the new plane include Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Lufthansa.

The first test flight of the aircraft is due early next year and by 2008 Airbus hopes to be producing four A380s a month.