Disappearing A340-600's

By Shihal Sapry

With Etihad Airways officially retired their last A340-600 service, this analysis will focus on the twilight of A340-600. A340-600's have disappeared from the skies with only a handful of operators currently flying the type. The A340-600 has been removed from fleets due to its higher fuel burn. The A340-600 also has higher maintenance costs of the Trent 500 engines as compared to the 777 fleet. This has nothing to do with the fact that the aircraft has 4 engines.

Etihad Airways' final A340-600 service is on EY 631 from Abu Dhabi to Casablanca on 27 October 2017 and the return flight. The following day's flight is shown as A330-200 equipment. A340-600 is the largest of the A340 family and competes with the 777-300ER.  At launch it was the longest aircraft in the world, only losing out to the 747-8I in 2011. Notable airlines that flew the A340-600 include Thai Airways, China Eastern, Cathay Pacific. 

Current operators include Iberia, South African Airways(SAA), Qatar Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways.  Iberia and SAA use the aircraft for its good and high performance. Refer to 'Hot and High' article for more information on hot and high performance. 

Graph by Ken Young (Aviationcult)

Qatar has 4 A340-600's, which were originally configured with 8 First, 42 Business class and 260 Economy class seats. Qatar densified the fleet and fitted the aircraft with 24 Business and  348 Economy Class Seats. These aircraft are deployed on Kuala Lumpur and Colombo. On these sectors and at this stage length, it is very possible that the extra fuel burn of the aircraft is not as significant. By increasing seat count, Qatar decreased cost per seat mile. By a previous analysis,  Lufthansa did a similar thing with their 747-400's. 

One of the two daily Barcelona flights (QR145) is also served by the A340-600. With Qatar undergoing rapid expansion, they could hold onto their A340-600's a bit longer, until they have a sufficient number of aircraft in the fleet to meet their growth schedule. Furthermore, they invested in the retrofit. Economically, it is not logical to invest in a retrofit only to retire the aircraft soon

Iberia also reconfigured some of their A340-600's.  While some A340-600's are being replaced, Iberia has not indicated which aircraft will replace the A340-600 on hot and high sectors in South America. Bogota, Mexico City, Quito and San Jose. Their new layout is 46 Business and 300 Economy Class Seats

SAA uses the A340-600 because it's the payload king at Johannesburg. SAA has outdated interiors in their A340 fleet. A tender was issued last year for refurbishment of 2 of their 9 A340-600. They have not mentioned the configuration of the refurbishment. This means they will operate the aircraft for some time. They seat 42 Business and 275 Economy Class Seats. SAA has a rather generous 33" seat pitch in Economy compared to the standard 31" offered by other airlines. Iberia and SAA had identical pre-refurbishment business and Economy class seats, with the only difference being the economy class seat pitch. 

Virgin Atlantic was a big promoter of the A340-600. They are being replaced by A330s and 787's. Virgin has 45 Business Class,  38 Premium Economy and 225 Economy Class seats.  Virgin has replaced their A340-600 routes with 787-9's. The 787-9's have 31 Business, 35 Premium economy and 198 Economy Class seats. We note a 33% decrease in business class capacity and a 20% decrease in Economy Class capacity. 

Etihad has 8 First, 32 Business and 276 Economy Class seats. The most appropriate similarly sized aircraft is the 777-300ER, with 8 First, 40 Business and 282 Economy class seats.  

All airlines  keep their business and first(where applicable) class seats between door 1 and 2.  Virgin Atlantic has their premium economy cabin after door 2. 

Lufthansa is another A340-600 operator with multiple layouts. They are replacing their A340-600s with A350-900's. From a previous analysis, Lufthansa decreased premium cabin capacity and increased economy class capacity for an overall capacity increase. 

In the graph below, we included current layouts of the A340-600.

Etihad is the only airline to operate a First Class Cabin, while Qatar historically had a First Class Cabin. Iberia has the largest Business Class Cabin with 46 Seats. Qatar has the smallest with 24 seats. Virgin Atlantic is the only airline to have a Premium Economy Cabin. SAA has mentioned they would like to introduce Premium Economy, however whether it will debut on the A340-600 is unknown. Qatar has the largest Economy Class Cabin with 348 Seats and Virgin Atlantic the smallest with 225 Seats.

However, if we include Premium Economy with Economy, Virgin Atlantic would have 263 Non-Business Class Seats.Virgin Atlantic seats the fewest passengers with 308 seats and Qatar the most with 372 seats. Lufthansa has been excluded since they have multiple layouts and these layouts were analysed previously. However as a summary, their A340-600's are more Premium Dense, due to First Class. Their configurations seat fewer total passengers than Virgin Atlantic. The following table offers additional insight.

The First Class column is largely irrelevant, since it is only Etihad Airways that has this cabin. The mean number of Business Class Seats is skewed by the Gulf carriers to a lower value. If we exclude these carriers, the mean is 44.33 seats. This is more representative of airlines using the A340-600's on long haul flights. The Standard Deviation (SD) for Business Class is representative of the Gulf carriers. Premium economy is largely  irrelevant as only one airline has such a cabin.

The mean number of Economy Class seats is skewed upward by Qatar and skewed slightly downwards by Virgin. The large SD is indicative of this. SAA's larger seat pitch in Economy explains the discrepancy between Iberia and SAA, as both airlines  seat Economy Class directly after Door 2 on the A340-600. The mean number of seats is once again skewed by Qatar Airways to 331.80 seats. Qatar's old layout seats 310 passengers totally. The mean number of seats would then be 319.4, which is more representative of carriers using the A340-600 on long haul flights.

​In conclusion, once Qatar Airways have an adequate number of aircraft, they will require their A340. While unlikely, Virgin Atlantic could reconfigure their A340-600's to a high density layout, similar to what Qatar did.  They could then deploy this aircraft on low yield routes. Hence, It will probably be Iberia or SAA that will operate the last A340-600 flight. Neither airline has ordered aircraft to replace the A340-600 on routes where the A340-600's performance is required.