Airbus A330

what is it?

The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus began developing larger A300 derivatives in the mid–1970s, giving rise to the A330 twinjet as well as the Airbus A340 quadjet, and launched both designs along with their first orders in June 1987. The A330-300, the first variant, took its maiden flight in November 1992 and entered service with Air Inter in January 1994.

🔎How to recognise it: jet engines · 60.3 m wingspan

base stats

• range 13,450 kmwithout refuelling
• built 1,378made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 34 years ago, in 1992.
• 🚗Wingspan of 60.3 m: about 13 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🌍Range of 13,450 km: Amsterdam to New York (≈5,850 km) without stopping.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.4× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1992-11-02

introduced

1994

status

still flying

number built

1,378

role

wide-body airliner with 2 jet engines

origin

🇫🇷 France

makers

Airbus Commercial Aircraft

engines

Pratt & Whitney PW4000 / Rolls-Royce Trent 700 / General Electric CF6

length

63.7 m

wingspan

60.3 m

height

16.8 m

top speed

—

range

13,450 km

ceiling

12,527 m

wings

monoplane

ICAO code

A332, A333

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.