Airbus A340

what is it?

The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 quadjet in parallel with the A330 twinjet. In June 1987, Airbus launched both designs with their first orders, with the A340-300 taking its maiden flight on 25 October 1991.

🔎How to recognise it: jet engines · 63.5 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 905 km/hcruise speed
• range 16,700 kmwithout refuelling
• size 178 tmax take-off weight
• built 377made 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 35 years ago, in 1991.
• 🚗Wingspan of 63.5 m: about 14 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 30 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 16,700 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

1991-10-25

introduced

1993

status

still flying

number built

377

role

wide-body airliner

origin

Multi-national

makers

Airbus Commercial Aircraft

engines

Rolls-Royce Trent 500 / CFM International CFM56

length

75.3 m

wingspan

63.5 m

height

17.8 m

max take-off weight

178 t

top speed

—

cruise speed

905 km/h

range

16,700 km

ceiling

12,525 m

ICAO code

A342, A343, A345, A346

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