They were once the king of the ultra-long range market. However with the advent of twin-engine ultra-long range jets, The Airbus A340-500 soon faces commercial flight service extinction. One airline operates the remaining A340-500 commercial service. However, this may not be for long as its operator Azerbaijan Airlines looks to replace them soon. As a result, the only place where you may spot one would be at an aircraft grave yard or at an airport tarmac.
Azerbaijan Airlines, or AZAL, is the operator of the last A340-500 in active commercial service. This is being used for the Baku to Moscow Domodedovo route. This is just 1887km, within the range of your daily Airbus A320ceo. The A340-500 is an ultra-long range aircraft which has a range of 16,670km.
The niche market Airbus A340-500 aircraft
The Airbus A340-500 was created for one strong purpose, to fly non-stop ultra-long range flights more than 15,000 kilometers. It is longer than an A340-300 and is powered by 4 Rolls Royce Trent 500 high-bypass turbofan engines. Each engine can produce a thrust of 54,000 lbf helping in giving the aircraft its range. It can fit 313 seats in a 3-class configuration and can fly 16,020 km. The A340-500 was specifically designed for those airlines looking for a point-to-point ULR service without the need of a stopover.
There are basically 4 variants in the Airbus A340 family. The A340-500 had the longest range and the A340-600 had the longest fuselage.
Only a few airlines operated the aircraft and were specifically used for non-stop ULR operations. Emirates became the launch customer of the A340-500 operating the Dubai (DXB) – New York (JFK) route. Singapore Airlines then used the A340-500 to open a non-stop route between Singapore to Newark. This had a distance of 15,345 kilometers and is considered the world’s longest active flight route. The estimated flight time for this is 18 hours and 33 minutes.
Singapore Airlines’ A340-500 was initially configured in a 181-seater bi-class layout but reconfigured to a 100-seater business-class only layout. Singapore Airlines also added a special compartment to store a corpse incase someone would die mid-flight. Fortunately, this was never used. However due to high fuel prices and high cost of operating an ultra-long haul flight, the service had to be suspended. Singapore Airlines continues to operate the route to this day, utilizing an Airbus A350-900ULR.
The advent of twin-engine Ultra-long range aircraft
The A340-500 was somehow unpopular during that time due to the niche market it serves. Majority did not really like non-stop ultra long haul flights that time. Also, the cost of operating one was very high. Later on, Boeing released its own ULR, the twin-engine Boeing 777-200LR. It was ETOPS rated with a range of 15,843km, using only 2-engines instead of 4. The B777-200LR placed an end to the A340-500 program for commercial airlines.
The A340-500 only had 6 major operators namely, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, Arik Air, Thai Airways, and AZAL. Norwegian, SAS, TAP Air Portugal, El Al, and Finnair used the aircraft on a short term basis only.
Today, the commercial aircraft with the longest range is the Airbus A350-900ULR. This has a range of 18,000km, and is currently flying the world’s longest flight, Singapore to New York.
The A340-500, though impractical, was a beautiful aircraft which set the standard for non-stop ULR flights.
