Guys when do you think devs gonna develop this aircraft?
Maybe if the devs decide it’s better to scrap the A346 and add this one vs a new airliner. That would be further down the line, since there´re three (four?) aircraft in development right now.
I hope that devs don’t remove the a346
Voted we need another 4 engine aircraft!
when we hit 1000 votes ![]()
Beautiful picture
Now this has me wondering why Airbus didn’t use the a330’s Rolls-Royce engines on the a340. Was it too heavy or something? Considering the a330 and a340 basically share the same overall build, how would the engines not fit?
First and foremost, it’d make absolutely no economical sense. Why would airlines buy an aircraft with four engines, four sets of landing gears, when they could buy essentially the same aircraft, but with just two of those very same engines, and one fewer set of landing gear?
Second, who knows whether the wing could handle the thrust of two of these - that’d be well over 130,000lbf per wing, compared to the up to 68,000lbf per wing the A340-300 has to withstand and the up to 72,000lbf per wing of the A330.
Third, Airbus… kinda already did it. They derated the A330’s engines a bit (62,000lbf per engine, or 124,000lbf per wing), reinforced the wing, and, as a bonus, added some extra fuel tanks, redesigned the tail, and even stretched the aircraft a little. You can vote for that right here:
Let’s see some sales results. The A340-300 with CFM56s sold 218 units. The “A340-300 with RR Trents”, only 34. Yes, the aircraft did enter service 10 years later, but even then, that says something - the insane amount of fuel a widebody engine uses.
The whole idea of the A340 was for it to be an efficient replacement for the DC-10 and L-1011, in a time when ETOPS wasn’t a thing. IAE had promised a 40,000lbf GTF, which never came to fruition due to lack of technology. Then, the million-dollar question: without the GTF, what engine can we use that, even with four of them installed (as a trijet design was deemed too complicated), will be significantly more efficient than three CF6s? The CFM56 was the only fitting option (and perhaps the V2500, but I don’t think Airbus would like to have an IAE engine on the A340 after they were essentially betrayed by them), but, of course, it came at the cost of performance - not that it was all that necessary, considering the A340 was meant to operate at large international airports, with very long runways, and losing an engine meant only 25% of total thrust was gone, rather than 33% or 50%.
The A340-300 had sales with the Trents? Was that a typo for say, the -500?
Quotation marks are there for a reason.
It was supposed to be “A340-300 but with Trents instead of CFMs,” aka the A340-500.
Edelweiss has retired it’s first A340-300 HB-JMG last week.
Yep but they still has exsisted for many years so I don’t see why we shouldn’t have them in IF by the end ![]()
Hey, that was my flight WK7 for Edelweiss Air (HB-JMG) an Airbus A340-300, my first time to ride the flight from Seattle to Zurich and arrived last date on June 3, 2025, in the afternoon.
Ooo !! That’s amazing you got to fly it !!
I’m sad Edelweiss ceased operations in San Diego and can’t blame them, the least amount of passengers they had in 2019 was bad..






