Why Didn’t Airbus Build An A340-400?

When you look at the A340 series, you might notice something odd. There is no -400, despite there being a -200, -300, -500 and -600. What was the A340-400 supposed to be, and why was it never built? Let us explore.
Article link: simpleflying.com/why-didnt-ai...
Video source links:
A340 Lufthansa Star Alliance • Emergency Landing! Luf...
A340-300 Air China • Air China B-2389 Airbu...
A340 Virgin Atlantic • Virgin Atlantic Airway...
A340-300 Edelweiss • AMAZING Edelweiss A340...
A340-300 Philippine Airlines • Philippine Airlines A3...
777-200 United Airlines • Boeing 777-200 United ...
A330-300 KLM • KLM A330-300 [PH-AKB] ...
Website: simpleflying.com/
Instagram: / simpleflyingnews
Twitter: / simple_flying
#Aviation #Flight #Avgeek

[@georgemukasabukenya1462]

Airbus A340-600 was my first flying experience long live Airbus

[@thomasjsanford9991]

I kind of doubt the a340 was built to be a rival for the 747... At the time, Airbus essentially had two basic fuselages
Narrow body
a318, a319, aa320, a321
&
Wide body
a300, a310, a330, and a340

[@chesterwang3070]

Bruh, 21 feet longer just to carry 5 more passengers, and a decrease in range of around 2000 km. WHY?

[@thomasjsanford9991]

You misunderstood.... 290 passengers to 335 passengers
45 more...

[@grahamturner2640]

Thomas J Sanford I think he meant from the -300 to the -400.

[@eduardogarcia732]

Weight. When you stretch the plane, most of the times, he gets heavier

[@weeklyacademics1456]

2:33 Mistake, its the A340 NOT THE A330 written on the top

[@tsarwilliams8912]

Wow interesting

[@monibstar]

Never thought about the a340-400 before

[@blaster915]

Very well done video

[@Waddle_Dee_With_Internet]

I swear, the A340 is basically A330-300 with 4 engines on it

[@DireWolfy]

Yes , it essentially is

[@justing42]

Yep

[@marxxmann8758]

The A340 have a slight resemblance of the Russian illyusin il96 four engine aircraft,especially the tail and wings section

[@Ananth8193]

It was interesting as always 😘😘😘😘👍👍...So as said if the maximum takeoff wait increases range of the decreases this I learnt today .. Thanks simple flying team .Your blogs all has very vital information which I see while opening Google.👍👍👍👍

[@michaelmoheb557]

Are the emojis really nesesary

[@SimpleFlyingNews]

Thanks for the feedback! - TB

[@thomasburke7995]

The 340 was always a proof of concept to build the 380..

[@koltp1909]

I was thinking about this

[@abbasbhanpura7079]

Talk abt b747-400d as you mentioned

[@itsnaveenn]

*yeah*

[@rocketman3863]

He did it already

[@Cliptalks12]

Good Video :D

[@dustinpatrickpeters8824]

The A340-400 must fly 9,600nm as well as the -700's

[@dustinpatrickpeters8824]

I was thinking about the A340-400 production as well as the -700

[@TJK152]

What about a a340-100

[@ATIMELINEOFAVIATION]

ooooh ya!

[@birdie8271]

I like the calm background music☺

[@SimpleFlyingNews]

Thanks for the feedback! - TB

[@philiproseel3506]

But the 747-400D was popular. In Japan. Your own article describes:
"But little is known about the 747-400D version of the 747. This was not designed for short-range, nor cargo capacity. It was created specifically for the Japanese market for short-haul high dense routes."
It was not meant to fly anywhere other than Japan, so its popularity isn't important.

[@avgeek578156]

Yeah don't think there was no need for the A340-400 since it wasn't gonna be economical! Airbus should have put the Trent 700 on the A340-200/300! & Trent 800 for the A340-500/600! Granted the -500/600 had good engines but there's more Trent 800 out there,

[@kingssuck06]

4 Trent 800 would’ve been overkill, unnecessary fuel consumption

[@b787900]

Airbus did exactly that. Take a 340-300 remove 2 engines and replace the remain 2 with T700s. That’s a 330-300.

[@alderlake12th]

@@kingssuck06 And supersonic speed

[@itzfaroff456]

There was also no -100

[@dustinpatrickpeters8824]

There should be an a340-400

[@anthonywinebarger]

Can you make a video about why the PRC and the ROC have the same registration id?

[@thomasjsanford9991]

Because the IATA considers them both to be from China...

[@anthonywinebarger]

@@thomasjsanford9991 Still, a video would be nice

[@78Dipar]

There is no more a market for 4 engines planes...

[@idpro83]

Why didn't they build the A340-800? Just make the 600 6 meters longer.

[@achimkohlhage1328]

The A340 was the most comfortable, quiet overseas plane. But it was abt 100km/h slower than the b747, meaning Asia to Europe tok more than 1hr longer...

[@Xamimus]

The A340-600 looks a little cursed.

[@suddhojitgon5929]

Of course Airbus was wise not to commercially produce the A340-400 as it would have been a flop and subsequent huge loss of money.

[@mirzaahmed6589]

Should have produced it for the Japanese domestic market.

[@paul_i_us]

Why don't you stick to one measurement system? Put the other one on screen only.

[@VexifyGaming]

Hi

[@darkknight1340]

They built the A350 instead.

[@nikolaszisoudis8408]

The first lanfing was a butter

[@siyaaviation3659]

Landing?

[@siyaaviation3659]

Not landing?

[@finer8992]

hello

[@737driver]

And where is the -100?

[@rajnirvan3336]

It was skipped from 300 to 500

[@annndukumutua833]

Airbus had too many ideas for their planes but most didn't succeed sad

[@itsnaveenn]

4th

[@badhrihari1705]

No u are 3rd

[@itsnaveenn]

@@badhrihari1705 OK
Thanks for telling

[@aviationlba747]

Quite frankly, I don’t think anyone gives a damn...

[@itsnaveenn]

@@aviationlba747 I subscribed u

[@st0nk172]

If we just need the capacity in my opinion it's better to stretch the a330 into a330-600 or whatever name u like rather than a340-400

[@davidoldham7476]

Not much use in building something no one was ordering or even much interested in.

[@Taxi645]

By the mid-nineties, with ETOPS 180 established, Airbus should've realized that twins were the way to go for planes of this capability. By then they should've cancelled the A340 altogether and built an A330-300ER and 400ER (same 12 section stretch to 70m) with Trent 800's and the A340’s 276,5T MTOW for year 2000 EIS. Ranges would've been 7.700 and 6.700Nm respectively making them ideal for transpacific and transatlantic missions. In turn providing a great opportunity for a 300ER based freighter 8 years earlier than the actual 233T MTOW A330-200F which would’ve been far more capable (payload and volume) for roughly the same platform size.
They considered an A340-400 in the early nineties, but the MTOW/range was still too limited then and it would not have done great with quad economics. They also considered an A330-400 with the same stretch, but that was even more limited in range. The only option for a (very) successful 400 would’ve been an A330-400, with the A340 276,5T MTOW and engines from the 777, but that would've required a strategic review of quads vs. twins for this capability class. That was a switch Airbus at the the time apparently wasn't able to make.
In stead they persisted in trying to cover every competitors model regardless of economics and launched planes like the A340-200, 500 and 600 which in total only sold 157. They should’ve known the limitations of their product and focussed instead on its strengths and go from there. The A340-300 (together with the A330) was a brilliant product strategy and product definition, but after that Airbus really dropped the ball with the A340 till the A350.

[@letsseeif]

Yep. ETOPS sealed the fate of all the four engined airlines, and this isn't going to change any time soon (if ever).

[@PankajKumar-os3dj]

What is ETOPS

[@20kfeet]

The real question is: Why didn't Airbus build an A340-800? :D

[@MSRTA_Productions]

Its the same reason :P

[@pangolin83]

Cause it would be a mile long

[@indranilchakrabarty4196]

Good !! Why did Airbus have this many variants of the 340 in the first place. The 600 and 500 served a purpose. Not the 200 and the 300.

[@Onioncake]

i had to use captions because this guy talks so soft

[@Dalmocavalcanti]

Airbus did worse, the A380!