Airbus A340 - Operational History

Operational History

The A340-200 entered service in 1993 with launch customer Lufthansa, followed shortly thereafter by the −300 of Air France and the A330. Lufthansa's first A340, dubbed Nürnberg (D-AIBA), began revenue service on 15 March 1993. Air Lanka (now known as Sri Lankan Airlines) became the Asian launch customer of the Airbus A340 when the airline's first Airbus A340-300 registered (4R-ADA) was delivered in September 1994. With the introduction of higher gross weight Boeing 777s, such as the -200ER and specifically -300ER, sales of the A340 began to decline. Over the last few years the 777 has outsold the A340 by a wide margin. Although the larger GE90 engines on the 777-300ER burn considerably more fuel than the Trent 500s, using only two of them compared to four Trents has meant a typical operating cost advantage of around 8–9%.

In mid-2008, jet fuel prices doubled compared to the year before; consequently, the A340's fuel consumption led airlines to reduce flight stages exceeding 15 hours. Thai Airways International cancelled its 17-hour, nonstop Bangkok–New York/JFK route on 1 July 2008, and placed its four A340-500s for sale. While short flights stress aircraft more than long flights and result in more frequent fuel-thirsty take-offs and landings, ultra-long flights require completely full fuel tanks. Thus en route, the plane is burning extra just to carry fuel, a "flying tanker with a few people on board," Air France-KLM SA's chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told the Wall Street Journal.

While Thai Airways has consistently filled 80% of the seats on its New York City–Bangkok flights, it estimates that, at 2008 fuel prices, it would need an impossible 120% of seats filled just to break even. Other airlines are re-examining long-haul flights. In August 2008 Cathay Pacific stated that rising fuel prices were hurting its trans-Pacific long-haul routes disproportionately, and that it would cut the number of such flights and redeploy its aircraft to shorter routes such as between Hong Kong and Australia. "We will...reshap our network where necessary to ensure we fly aircraft to where we can cover our costs and also make some money."