#a340

August 2018

Air Mauritius MK 851, Port Louis to Johannesburg.

Airbus A340-600 Conviasa

Registration: YV3545 Type: A340-642 Engines: 4 × RR Trent 556-61 Serial Number: 391 First flight: Sep 2, 2002

Línea Aérea Conviasa – this is how Venezuela's state-owned airline is commonly known, although its full legal name sounds far more impressive: Consorcio Venezolano de Industrias Aeronáuticas y Servicios Aéreos (Venezuelan Consortium of Aeronautical Industries and Air Services). The company's headquarters is located at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, near the country's capital – Caracas.

The new company's first flight took place on November 28, 2004. A De Havilland Canada Dash 7 aircraft operated a service from the airport in Charallave to Santiago Mariño International Airport on Margarita Island. This was a symbolic beginning for an airline whose headquarters was actually located on that island. The company officially began its operations at national and international levels on December 10, 2004.

In recent years, Conviasa has been actively expanding its long-haul fleet. In July 2020, an Airbus A340-300 joined the fleet in addition to the existing A340-200 – this allowed for an increase in both cargo capacity and operational range. Then, in March and June 2022, two Airbus A340-600s entered the fleet. In 2022, the company announced the acquisition of an A340-500, but for some reasons the deal did not materialize. Yet this would have made Conviasa the only airline in the world operating all variants of the A340.

Today it is Venezuela's flagship and largest carrier, operating flights both domestically and to countries in the Caribbean, South America, and even to Moscow. To operate these flights, the airline manages a fleet of 24 aircraft, ranging from regional ATR 42s and Embraer 190s to long-haul Airbus A340s, as well as one presidential Airbus A319 ACJ.

They faced the issue of ETOPS restrictions, basically a series of rules that limited aircraft range based on number of engines, and since they wanted to both replace the A300 and compete with the 747 and DC-10/MD-11, they basically developed a single airframe and wing for two planes

The A330, the direct successor to the A300

And the A340, the new challenger in the pacific and long-range flights.

The funny thing is, the A340 didn’t get 4 of the A330 engines, instead, as you can see, it got smaller engines, actually from the narrow body A320.

In effect just giving a tad more power and range compared to the A330, but giving us what has to be the most underpowered wide body airliner ever made, infamous for it’s long take-off runs and atrocious climb rates.

Hence why Airbus came back to its senses and actually gave it proper wide-body engines, finally creating a proper contender to the 747.

Sadly, with the end of the ETOPS restrictions and the rise of ultra-long range twin jets, the days of the A340 were counted, its production run ending in 2010.