in 1972, the a300 made its maiden flight; its first production model, the a300b2, entered service in 1974. however, the launch of the a300 was largely overshadowed by the similarly timed supersonic aircraft concorde. initially the success of the consortium was poor, but orders for the aircraft picked up, due in part to the marketing skills used by airbus ceo bernard lathière, targeting airlines in america and asia. by 1979 the consortium had 256 orders for a300, and airbus had launched a more advanced aircraft, the a310, in the previous year. it was the launch of the a320 in 1987 that guaranteed the status of airbus as a major player in the aircraft market – the aircraft had over 400 orders before it first flew, compared to 15 for the a300 in 1972.