Airbus A340-300 (A343)

The A340-300 is Airbus's long-haul quadjet from the years when four engines were the price of crossing an ocean. Airbus launched the A340 in June 1987 alongside the twin-engine A330, the two sharing a fuselage, wing, cockpit and most systems, so that airlines could buy a medium-haul twin and a long-haul four-engine airplane with one type rating. The A340 was meant to compete with the MD-11 and the 747 on routes where ETOPS rules still kept twins out, and its CFM56-5C engines, derivatives of the 737 and A320 engine, were chosen for reliability and low maintenance cost.

The first A340 flew on October 25, 1991, and the A340-300 entered service in March 1993 with Lufthansa and Air France. A shorter, longer-range A340-200 followed; the -300, 63.7 meters long with 250 to 290 seats in three classes and about 7,300 nautical miles of range, was the one most airlines wanted. Lufthansa, Air France, Swissair, SAS, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, South African Airways and Air Canada all flew it on routes to the Americas, Asia and Africa. Airbus later added the much larger A340-500 and -600 with Rolls-Royce Trent engines, which carry their own codes.

The A340-300's problem was the airplane it was designed with. By the late 1990s the A330-300 and Boeing's 777 could fly most of the same routes on two engines, burning less fuel and costing less to maintain, and as ETOPS limits rose to 180 minutes and beyond the four-engine advantage disappeared. The -300's underpowered takeoff from hot, high airports became a running joke among pilots. Airbus delivered the last A340-300 in 2008 and ended the A340 program in 2011 after 377 aircraft of all versions, of which 218 were -300s.

Retirement came fast after 2015, and the pandemic seemed to finish the type. It did not. In 2022 Lufthansa, short of long-haul aircraft as travel recovered and its new 787s and 777Xs were delayed, returned parked A340-300s to service from Frankfurt and Munich, and some are still flying. Edelweiss, Lufthansa's Swiss leisure airline, Mahan Air of Iran, Conviasa of Venezuela and a few charter and government operators keep others going. The A340 story on this site follows that revival.

The A340 is an A330 with four engines, and the shared parts are the point: the 5.64-meter-wide fuselage with eight-abreast economy, the 60.3-meter wing, the fly-by-wire cockpit with sidesticks and the type rating are common, and the wing was designed from the start to carry two or four engines. The A340's wing adds a strengthened structure and the extra pylons, and the airplane has a two-wheel center main landing gear under the fuselage to carry its higher weight.

The engines are four CFM56-5C4 turbofans of about 34,000 pounds of thrust each, small engines for a 276-ton airplane. Their size is why the A340-300 climbs slowly and uses long runways, and why its fuel burn per seat is worse than a big twin's, but it is also why the engines were cheap to buy and easy to maintain, and why the A340 never had an ETOPS restriction anywhere.

The flight deck is the Airbus common cockpit shared with the A320, A330 and later types, with six displays and the fly-by-wire envelope protection Airbus introduced on the A320. The A340-300's maximum takeoff weight grew from 257 tons to 276.5 tons over its production life, with range rising to about 7,300 nautical miles; the -200 traded 15 fewer rows for more range, and the later -500 and -600 are different airplanes with a bigger wing and Trent engines.

Lufthansa is the A340-300's most visible operator, flying a reactivated fleet on long-haul routes from Frankfurt and Munich, mostly to North America and Asia, until its new widebodies arrive. Edelweiss operates ex-Swiss A340-300s on leisure routes from Zurich to the Americas, Africa and Asia. Mahan Air of Iran flies a large fleet under sanctions, Conviasa of Venezuela and Air Algérie use small numbers, and Plus Ultra of Spain, several Portuguese and Spanish charter operators and a few governments account for most of the rest. Freighter conversions never happened at scale, so retired A340-300s are generally stored or scrapped. On a tracker the code A343 is now concentrated on Lufthansa's Frankfurt departures and Mahan's Tehran network.

An A340-300 flight is a widebody experience from the 1990s, which is mostly pleasant. Economy is 2-4-2, eight-abreast, so the side pairs are ideal for couples and no window seat has more than one neighbor; seats are typically 17.5 to 18 inches wide at 31 to 32 inches of pitch. The four small engines make it quieter than many twins in the back of the cabin, and the ride is steady. Cabins vary: Lufthansa's reactivated aircraft have older business seats but refurbished economy; Edelweiss flies a leisure layout with a small premium cabin. Overhead bins are smaller than on an A350 or 787 and the cabin altitude is higher, so long flights feel longer. Best seats are the window pairs forward of the wing; avoid the center block of four and the last rows near the rear galleys. Takeoffs are slow and long, which is normal for the type, not a sign of trouble.

Four engines on a widebody that is not a 747 or an A380 narrows the field to the A340 and a few 747-sized military jets. The A340-300 has the A330's fuselage and the A330's rounded nose, but with four small CFM56 engines, visibly narrower than any big-twin engine, and a center main gear with two wheels under the belly. Its wingtips carry small wing fences, canted up and down, rather than tall winglets. Telling it from the A340-200 is a matter of length, the -200 being four meters shorter with fewer windows. The A340-500 and -600 are easy to separate: both have much larger Trent engines, a four-wheel center gear and the -600 is nearly twelve meters longer. Against an A330-300, the twin has two big engines where the A340 has four small ones; everything else matches.