One last time

As you all know, due to ongoing crises in the Middle East, fuel prices went skyrocketing through the roof. This of course also hit the aviation industry. Recently, airlines such as Lufthansa CityLine and Spirit Airlines have closed down overnight due to financial reasons or simply not being profitable anymore due to high fuel prices. Many other airlines, including KLM, are also cancelling flights due to them no longer being profitable. For this reason, airlines are increasingly looking to renew their fleets with more fuel-efficient aircraft in order to withstand this crisis and ensure their continued existence for many years to come. And that's exactly what Lufthansa did.

When Lufthansa shut down one of its smaller city airlines, Lufthansa CityLine, it was also revealed that certain planes would be taken out of service ahead of schedule. This includes the Boeing 747-400 and the Airbus A340-600, which is the main subject of today's blog.

For me personally, the Airbus A340 was always a fascinating aircraft, especially the -600 variant. With a length of 75,30 Meters, it was the longest passenger aircraft ever made until Boeing released its Boeing 747-8 variant. Powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 500 turbofans and boasting a maximum range of 13,900 kilometres (8,600 nautical miles), this aircraft had a capacity for 380 passengers in a three-class configuration or 419 passengers in a two-class configuration, making it a successful competitor against Boeing’s 747 variants. Originally, the Airbus Airbus A340 was first launched way back in 1991 as the Airbus A340-300. Due to it being developed parallel with the Airbus A330, both aircraft share a lot of similarities with each other. The A340 was also the second ever fly-by wire wide body aircraft ever built. Back then, it was planned that the company IAE would develop new engines for the A340. For some reason, this company stopped the program and Airbus had to plan something else. They used the CFMI CFM56-5C-Turbofan engine, which was less powerful than the planned engine and burned more fuel than originally planned. For this reason, the A340-300 is sometimes referred to as 'underpowered' or the 'grandpa of the skies', due to its slow climbing rate and take-off performance. Nevertheless, it is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built and, thankfully, it is still in service today.

Over the years, Airbus has released several updated variants of the A340: These include the A340-200 and A340-200E (the 'E' stands for 'enhanced' and refers to the increased fuel capacity), the A340-300E, the A340-400 and A340-500, and the latest and greatest variant of all, the Airbus A340-600. There is also an A340 VIP variant, based on the A340-300. A couple of countries used this as their government plane, for example Germany. Germany had two A340s that were used as government planes. The first was named 'Konrad Adenauer' and was registered as 16+01, while the second was named 'Theodor Heuss' and was registered as 16+02.

Now, let's come back to the real reason why I am writing this blog. As I already mentioned, the time of four engines aircraft is coming to an end, and the A340-600, being one of my favourite aircraft, I knew I had to get another picture of one. And so, the Mission A340-600 was born. I was visiting my parents when I came across Flightradar24 while randomly scrolling on my phone. I was planning to visit Maastricht Aachen Airport again at some point and had heard that two A340-600s sometimes flew there, but I had no idea when. When I checked what was going on in Maastricht, I realised that one of the two A340s was parked on the apron and scheduled to leave for Karaganda (Kazakhstan) at around midday, so I screwed all my plans over and packed my stuff and went to the airport. I realized that this may be my last chance to ever see an A340-600. Fortunately, the weather was almost perfect and everything went according to plan. After a quick look at the apron, I headed quickly to the runway. I took these photos, perfectly placed on runway 03, which sadly could be the last photos I ever took of this beautiful aircraft.

That is the story behind this blog. Below are pictures of the above mentioned aircraft. It’s crazy to think that these aircraft will soon be a thing of the past. I’m just grateful that I had the opportunity to see one again. Hopefully they will stick around for a while longer, but due to changes in the aviation world, I don't really think so…

So, thank you for reading my blog and…

Thank you and goodbye, Airbus A340-600!

Best regards,

Johannes Fahr

Owner of fahr-photography.com

This is the European Cargo flight URO970, departing Maastricht to Karaganda. A 21 year old Airbus A340-642, painted in European Cargo’s livery, which has still all the details from its first owner, Virgin Atlantic. This particular aircraft was newly delivered to Virgin Atlantic in February of 2005 as G-VNAP. It stayed its whole life as a passenger aircraft at Virgin Atlantic before being retired in the corona pandemic. It was then converted to a cargo aircraft in April of 2020 and serves its job since then. It was painted in a special livery called “Thank you, NHS” from April till October of 2020. Since June of 2023 it flies for European Cargo with the registration G-ECLM as an Airbus Airbus A340-600(F). One of only 11 A340(F) ever converted.

G-ECLM parked on the apron at Maastricht Aachen Airport, almost ready to depart for Karaganda ,Kazakhstan