The A340-200 typically carries 239 passengers on flights of up to
14,800km.
It's a shortened longer range version of the A 340-300.
The A340-200 variant sold in relatively small numbers (only 28). The first A 340-200 was delivered to Saudi Arabian 1997.
The aircraft flies with the following airlines in
2009: South African, Royal Jordanian, Egypt Air and Aerolineas
Argentinas.
Range
The A340-200, with 261 passengers in a three-class cabin layout has a
range of 7,450 nautical miles (13,000 km).
In a 239 seats configuration, the A340-200 has a range of up to 8,000
nautical miles (14,800 km).
The A340-200 was no
match for the Boeing 777-200ER also
available since 1997.
The A340-500 (availabe from 2002) has more range. In 2006 the first
Boeing 777-200LR was delivered with even more range.
A340-A330 family
Airbus originally developed the A330-300 as a longer airliner with the same cross section as the original A300, developed by the same engineers as Condord.
At the same time early 1990 Airbus developed the 4-enigned A340-300 which had more range and would be able to cross large oceans with 4-enigines.
Then Airbus wanted to add more range. In 1997 the Boeing 777-200ER had
more range. But the A340-200 was no match for the 2-engined Boeing
competitor.
The
A340-200 was the longest range commerical airliner in the world. Untill the A340-500 became available.
As the A340-200 variant sold very bad, Airbus decided to give this
shortened A340-300, the wings of the A330-300. This airliner became the
succesfull Airbus A330-200.
Both A330-200 and A340-200 are both shortened longer range versions of
the
initial A330-300 and A340-300. Also the tail of both A340-200 and
330-200 had to become larger as the distance to the tail was shortened
by removing some cross-sections.
See the difference between the initial and shortened airliners.
Deliveries of this initial A330-300 and A340-300 begane round 1993.
Deliveries of the shortened A330-200 and A340-200 became around 1997.
