FAILURE? - The Airbus A340 Poor Sales
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- The Airbus A340 is a quad-engined widebody, but, since its conception, struggled to attract firm interest and has seen perceived at times as a failure commercially. Today, I analyse why the A340 experienced poor sales and how its place in the industry might have not all been thanks to Airbus' faults within the market.
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You're missing out the most important two points. The problem with the A340 wasn't the number of engines. It was the number of tonnes. Compare the empty weight of an A340-500 to that of a 777-200LR. They carry roughly the same number of passengers over roughly the same range, and the a340 is roughly 20% heavier. That's fatal to the economics of the aircraft. This isn't because it's quad-engined, in fact a quad should be slightly lighter than a twin with the same payload and range (other things being equal) because the weight of the engines is distributed more evenly along the wing span.
Secondly, the fuel consumption of the engines. In order to get subsidised loans from the UK government to develop the aircraft, Airbus had to offer Rolls Royce an exclusive deal to make the engines. So, Rolls was allowed to make engines that were far less efficient than those offered on the 777 because, on the 777, they had to compete on equal terms with GE and P&W for the business. Their A340 engine enjoyed a monopoly so they didn't have to squeeze every last ounce of fuel efficiency out of it. As Sir Tim Clarke said, once fuel topped $125 per barrel the A340 "hadn't a hope."
A340-600 Is One My Favoritt.Great Video And Info
I'm hoping to get a chance to fly on Lufthansa's A340s this summer before they are retired.
The A345 is the best-looking airliner by far. Got to fly on Swiss A343 - slowest takeoff ever - and Lufti A346 and both were great from a pax-ex POV.
I flew this aircraft a few times with Lufthansa and SWISS, and I can sit comfortably due to its 2-4-2 configuration in Economy Class, the same as the Airbus A330.
Not to mention by the 2000s, Airbus discovered the Airbus A330 is way better than the A340. As of April 2024, at least 125 Airbus A340 are still flying by dozens of operators including Lufthansa, Swiss, Mahan Air, and Edelweiss.
The new USAF Doomsday planes will have to use secondhand B747-8. I think there is a small section of the market that needs quad jets. Military plus long overwater routes, noe you can no longer overfly Siberia , Ukraine or Iran. I think a A340-200/300NEO with leap 1 engines. The A340 is closely related to the A330 & that is still in production.
Yep, the USAF is going to use old Korean 747-8s
Airbus still moved 377 of these 'inefficient & obsolete' quadjets-- nearly twice what MD sold in their MD11. The MD11 deserved a mention as it was from the early 90s- like the A340. The A300 Was the first wide body twin to prove its worth, Not the 767. 767 was the original etops example simply by virtue of being American. This was Way before your time, mind...
IAE superfan was definitely NOT stronger than CFM56-5C that A343/A342 used... Just much more effcient, as it was Geared, like PW1000G is
At the end of the day, the A330 & A340 are just different versions of the same aircraft. A330 MRTT even uses the mounting points of the outside engines for fuel hose mountings. A330/340 program overall has been very successful
4 engines mounted on the wing really undermine the aerodynamic as well as the thrust of the a340. This jet is the most underpowered and least efficient amongst Airbus wide-bodies and as it turned out, it was outsold by the B777- a state-of-the-art rival in the early 2000s.
Thanks for this Dj!!
At least it managed to break even. Every widebody was doomed ever since the turn of the century
A350 and A330neo also have already reached break even. It's only A380 and 787 that (so far) didn't
Because having 2 engines instead of 4 will never lead to oversized pods or full hull losses
What really killed the A340 was the massive success of the 777. The 777-200ER had the same range as the A340-300, and the 777-300ER had the same range as the A340-600. And the 777 used significantly less fuel per passenger. Small wonder why Emirates has such a gigantic 777-300ER fleet. So much so that Airbus admitted defeat and developed the A350XWB to better compete against the 777.
At least someone got it right.
Sold as more efficient 747 replacement and Boeing 777 was like "hold my beer!". However since there is a lot of commonality between the 340 and the 330, probably not a big loss. The 330 sold well, one wonders if they had made a 330 as big as the 340-600 if it would have been serious competition for the 777.
A bigger A330 was what the A350 was originally going to be. The A350 that we know and love today is very different than a bigger A330 because airlines were not satisfied with just a bigger A330.
Interesting vid, maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but I never knew about the engine difficulty that hurt the development of the A340. I’ve never been a big fan of the A340 from an aesthetics perspective and even when I was young and knew nothing about engine efficiency, it always struck me as odd that a single deck aeroplane would have 4-engines. It just looks strange, and the fact that Lufthansa flys this… and the A380… and the 747-8 is almost impossible to fathom how they make money
I live in Frankfurt and see these giants flying in and out multiple times every day. Lufthansa not only makes money, they make so much they keep buying planes, vehicles (mostly Porsche) and buildings for the sake of saving taxes. The volumes of money and people they move are absolutely insane and impossible to fathom for the average human
Thanks for the history lesson...not news
I flew on a few Lufthansa A-340s. Nice interiors, despite the bizarre lower deck lavs. But it felt like it couldn’t climb, especially compared to a 777 or 330.
The A340 is very elegant and aesthetically pleasing. It "looks" like classic international air travel. I flew round trip between MIA and CDG on Air France A340s, and from BKK to JFK on a Thai A340-500 (at the time it was the second longest flight in the world). All were smooth, quiet, and comfortable. I also flew from MAD to JFK on a jam-packed Iberia A340 after my American Airlines flight was canceled due to a blizzard. A truly terrific plane that arrived on the market at the wrong time.
The Failure is Actually the Airbus A380!
Yep