Lufthansa exercised a decisive influence on the basic parameters, such as passenger capacity, range and engine choice, and, together with Air France, became the launch customer. Lufthansa first opted for the longer range, shorter fuselage A340-200, but soon supplemented them with the higher capacity extended fuselage A340-300.
Airbus Industries A340 Article
Launched simultaneously in June 1987 with the A330, the A340-300 first flew on 25 October 1991 and the type entered service with both Lufthansa and Groupe Air France on 1 March 1993 accommodating 250-440 passengers.
Sharing near identical systems, airframe, cockpit and wings with the A330, the twin-engine A330-300 is the same length as the A340-300
The four-engined A340-300 is the standard fuselage long-range aircraft (seating 295 with a range of 6,750 nm), while the A340-200, which first flew on 1 April 1992, is 4.27 m shorter (260 seats) and is an ultra-long-range version (7,550 nm).
Airbus’s ultra-long-range A340-500 has been granted type certification by the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA). The aircraft, which has a shorter fuselage and a longer range than the A340-600, first flew on 11 February 2002 and since then the two test aircraft have accumulated some 400 flight hours in more than 150 flights during the certification campaign. The -500 is capable of flights ranging over 8,650 nm and both the -500 and -600 versions of the A340 are powered by Roll-Royce’s Trent 500 engines. The first aircraft was scheduled for delivery to Air Canada in early 2003. The A340-600 is a long range, high capacity model, first flown on 23 April 2001. The -600 utilises LCD displays and taxi cameras.
Lufthansa was the first operator of the Airbus A340. It first flew the Airbus A340-200 in 1993, later retiring all eight of its examples by 2003. It’s also the largest operator of the A340-300, still flying in 2025 17 out of the 30 examples it took, and ordered 24 Airbus A340-600s, though only eight of these still fly for the German flag carrier.
Airbus prepared a corporate A340-600 for the Saudi Arabian oil company the Saad Group with a range of 8500 nm / 15,745 km carrying 90 passengers.
A340-200
Engines: 4 x GE/SNECMA CFM56, 32,200 lb thrust
Length: 195 ft
Wingspan: 198 ft
MTOW: 566,590 lb
Max Ldg wt: 399,00 lb
Payload: 95,000 lb
Full load range: 7350nm
A340 211
Engines: 4 x CFM56 5C2F
A340-300
Engines: 4 x CFM-56-5-C4, 34,000 lb thrust
Max ramp wt: 275.5 tonnes
MTOW: 275 tonnes
Vmq: 350 kt / M 0.86
A340-300
Engines: 4 x CFM International CFM56-5C-2 turbofans, 138.8kN
Wingspan: 58.65 m / 192 ft 5 in
Length: 63.65 m / 208 ft 10 in
Height: 1.74 m / 5 ft 9 in
Wing area: 361.6 sq.m / 3892.23 sq ft
Take-off weight: 251000 kg / 553363 lb
Empty weight: 125500 kg / 276682 lb
Max. speed: 910 km/h / 565 mph
Range: 12325 km / 7659 miles
Crew: 2
Passengers: 335
A340-500
Engines: 4 x Rolls-Royce Trent 500
A340-600
Engines: 4 x Rolls-Royce Trent 500
Length: 247 ft
Range: 7500 km
All Aero 