Blog #4: 01/11/23: Aviation Blog - Reminiscing On The A340
Hi there, welcome back to another episodic blog of Brooke In The Air!
Today we're shifting away from military aviation and going back to what Brooke In The Air is all about! Commercial aviation!
Today’s blog is not so much about history, but a memorial to a dying plane. A plane that so much potential and never got the chance to live up to it before being supplanted by it's big brother, the A350, plus it's gigantic brother, the A380, but especially the A350, which is becoming the best-selling widebody aircraft in Europe, competing directly with Boeing's 777 variants. But we'll discuss the A350 later. For now, I'm referring, of course, to the venerable Airbus A340, one of the last few yet best loved remaining quad-engine jets in existence.
While using a similar airframe as the A330 widebody, differences include four high-bypass turbofans instead of the A330's two CFM International-branded engines, and an additional mid-body landing gear spar for a heavier MTOW (or maximum takeoff weight). Fly-by-wire controls were added, similar to the much smaller A220, including an almost identical flight deck as well as a glass cockpit - a cockpit featuring all digital displays as opposed to analogue readouts, dials, and knobs. Later versions of the A340 were equipped with a larger wing, and improved engines (featuring Rolls-Royce Trent 500 275 kN allowing for a 380 ton MTOW.
Inaugural A340-600 at the Farnborough Air Show, 1992
The A340 first entered service as the A340-200 in 1993 with Lufthansa a year after making her first appearance as a mere demonstrator aircraft in 1992 at the Farnborough Air Show. Ultimately, the A340-600’s maximum range was clocked at around 9,000 nautical miles, transporting 310 passengers in a total of (usually) three available classes, Economy, Premium Economy, Business, or First Class. Because on international flights, there very much IS a difference between Business and First class.
The A340 launched with customers Air France, and Lufthansa, with Lufthansa still being the largest carrier of the aircraft. However, more economical twinjets along with improvements in engine reliability allowed ETOPS (essentially, extended-range twin-engine operations) operations to have replaced quadjets on numerous routes. As mentioned, Lufthansa is the largest A340 operator in the world, with 34 A340 aircraft in the German flag carrier’s fleet.
By the end of calendar year 2021, globally, A340s had completed 2.5 million flights over 20 million block flight hours, and carried over 600 million passengers with no fatalities. That is not quite twice the population of the United States.
The big difference was in the hemispheres, literally. With North American operators preferring a twinjet (any surprise coming in regards to the preferences of the American legacy carriers? American, United, and Delta, none of them found quadjets, including the A340 to be potentially economical or in any sense profitable) and Asian carriers vastly preferring a quadjet. European carriers were split on opinions between the two. Overall, the majority of potential customers were in favor of a quad despite the fact that it was generally more costly to operate a quadjet rather than a twinjet.
Size comparison, A330 (taxiing) and A340 (airborne)
The A340-600, the final and stretched variant was enlarged by 40% to compete with the Boeing 777-300ER and 777-200LR (see my Air Canada vlog review for a complete tour of the Air Canada version of the 777-300ER) and was undoubtedly the longest passenger airliner in the world until Boeing countered with the introduction of the new & improved 747-8 Intercontinental jumbo-jet in 2010. The 747-8i is still the longest passenger airplane in the world, while Airbus’s A380 is by far the overall biggest.
The deathknell for the Airbus A340 actually came in 2005 when 155 Boeing 777s were ordered against an offer of 15 A340s. ETOPS restrictions were substantially overcome by lower operating costs as opposed to quadjets, and the subsequent relaxation of ETOPS requirements for A330s, 777 and other twinjet classes. The deciding factor, as it always is, was cost. The per unit cost, in US dollars, in 2011 ws 238 million (286.7 million in 2022 dollars) and graduating costs for each successive variant the buyback guarantees that Airbus offered its customers came back to bite them, as the value of the A340 decreased by over 30% over 10 years.
This rising cost, coupled with comparatively low customer demand amidst the Great Recession of 2007-2009 when initial orders were placed, plus the fact that the aircraft was too heavy, according to many in senior management, and the “fuel burn” was uneconomical as opposed to the A330 and Boeing 777.
El Al Boeing 777-200ER, taking off from Ben Gurion International Airport
Airbus’s best hope for the A340, aside from the existing carriers such as Lufthansa, is to offer used A340s to airlines desiring to retire their older aircraft such as the Boeing 747-400, using the fact that the cost of purchasing and maintaining a used, or secondhand, A340 with increased seating, and improved overall engine performance compared favorably to the cost of purchasing and maintaining a brand new Boeing 777.
There are numerous reconfigurement proposals by airbus such as reconfiguring the A340 in a single-class setting of 475 seats.
