Why the A340 is the World's Unluckiest Plane

this episode of kobe explains is brought to you by brilliant the aviation industry can be brutally unforgiving no matter how exceptional the business model or how well it's executed airlines frequently collapsed due to factors outside of their control a few years back i did a deep dive into why norwegian is the poster child for this phenomenon and why it is the unluckiest airline of all time but the thing is this misfortune can extend beyond airlines airplane manufacturers can also pull all the right levers and still fall victim to this fickle industry and there may be no aircraft family that suffered worse timing or misfortune than the airbus a340 let me explain [Music] real quick folks youtube is still telling me less than 20 of the people watching this video are actually subscribed to the channel so go ahead and hit that button and bell so we can build the absolute best community in aviation together now to understand the a340s misfortune we need to go all the way back to the late 70s at the time airbus was riding high its debut aircraft the a300 was a smash hit becoming the world's first wide-bodied twin of course this success didn't come cheap airbus spent nearly 10 billion dollars on its development so to build on the plane's success and increase the return on investment airbus turned to its american counterpart for inspiration on what to do next the 707 had done for boeing what the a300 did for airbus propelling the company to the forefront of commercial aviation and boeing cleverly capitalized on its success by carrying its dna across future aircraft the 727 737 and 757 all share its basic fuselage design and they all look remarkably similar this helped boeing lower program and production costs while maintaining commonality across its narrow body fleet airbus hoped to do the same with the a300 using it as a template to develop a whole lineup of wide bodies and there was one key market segment that they were keen to disrupt the dc-10 had long dominated the 300 to 350 seat segment but by the early 80s the plane looked vulnerable not only had it suffered a string of crashes that hurt its reputation but it was also getting old dc10 operators would soon be seeking its replacement and with no other competitors on the horizon airbus saw a golden opportunity to supplant the trijet now the decision to build a dc10 competitor was easy enough what wasn't so easy was settling on how many engines it should have should airbus stick with the a300s two engine setup or add more the idea of building a new tri-jet was quickly dismissed due to design limitations but boeing executives were drawn to the idea of building a quad jet now by today's standards this might sound like an insane decision it's a well-known fact that quadjets are much more expensive to operate than twins but in the early 80s the benefits of twin jets were largely offset by regulation early turbofans weren't very reliable so airlines weren't permitted to fly their twins more than 60 minutes away from a diversion airport this decreased the likelihood of an off-field ditching during an engine failure but it also prevented planes like the a300 from flying over large bodies of water this created a bit of a conundrum for airbus but at the end of the day the dc-10 made its money as a long-haul trans-oceanic workhorse so no twin could serve as its replacement ultimately the jet maker took the conservative approach and in 1982 began to design the quadjet a340 this was a very sound decision yes the plane would burn more fuel but it seemed that the faa would never waver on its stance towards twins this was punctuated by a famous statement made by faa director lynn helms who at the time said it'll be a cold day in hell before i let twins fly long haul over water routes and that's why airbus executives were totally blindsided by what would come next in 1985 the faa changed its tune airlines successfully lobbied the agency into instituting etops easing the 60-minute diversion criteria for twins at first airbus didn't see etops as an existential threat for one early etops regulations simply extended the diversion rule from 60 minutes to 120 while this opened up many trans-atlantic routes to twins most trans-pacific routes remained off limits even if european carriers scaled back their a340 fleets key asian customers like cathay pacific and singapore airlines still had a clear need a second reason etops wasn't really seen as a threat came from just how difficult it was to obtain each airline had to apply for etops individually and they often had to spend a lot of money to do so for instance twa who was the first airline to earn an etops rating spent seven million dollars per aircraft to retrofit them with the tech needed to achieve compliance that was on top of the millions more they spent beefing up maintenance practices which was another etops requirement given these obstacles the a340 seemed safe and its development continued but unfortunately for airbus it soon became clear that the benefits of etops far outweighed its cost after twa received approval it deployed a 767 on its daily flight between boston and paris a flight originally served by a trijet and the difference it made was staggering the airline was saving upwards of 50 000 pounds of fuel per flight all of a sudden every transatlantic airline was clamoring for e-tops still airbus had the asian market secured right well not quite etops proved an immediate success both from a financial and safety perspective so just three years later the faa introduced etops 180. now twins could fly up to 180 minutes from an airport this completely changed the calculus since 95 of global routes were now technically serviceable by twins but by this point it was too late for airbus to change course the a340 had started taking orders and was already well into production airbus went from having a strong competitive advantage in the 300 seat space to having none at all all before a single a340 could take flight to make matters worse airbus's biggest rival was paying close attention while the a340 was an extremely modern and capable aircraft even by today's standards boeing recognized its fuel burn disadvantage and it responded by developing the triple seven this massive twin jet would compete with the a340 head on and has since gone on to crush it in sales while the a340 secured 375 orders during its run of production the triple seven has racked up over 2 000 and counting despite this misfortune the story of the a340 does have a silver lining during the plane's initial evaluation there were a few vocal customers who didn't like the direction airbus was headed they much preferred airbus build a twin with a capacity between the a300s and a340s now airbus wasn't going to give up the a340 for this vocal minority but they did realize that co-developing such a plane alongside the a340 could be done for fairly cheap it was originally thought that this second plane later known as the a330 would trail the a340 in sales but that couldn't have been further from the truth airbus has gone on to sell almost five times as many a330s as a340s making it the company's most successful wide body the a330 success certainly helps make up for the a340s misfire but we need to call the a340 what it is a failure but it was a failure by no fault of airbus they did everything right here one they correctly identified a market segment that was right for disruption and two they moved quickly to secure a first mover advantage what's more they ended up building a remarkably advanced and capable airplane at the end of the day it would have been foolish for them not to act when they did and in the way they did and that's exactly what makes the a340 the unluckiest jet of all time now i've personally never flown the a340 which is a bummer because time is running out for the plane if you've ever flown one let me know about your experience in the comments i'm eager to hear what it's like and thanks again to brilliant for sponsoring today's video i was pumped when brilliant reached out to me because it is the platform for lifelong learners their interactive courses in areas like compsci science and math not only make learning more fun but actually helps you retain way more info than if you just watched a lecture what's more brilliant lets you learn at your own pace with bite-sized lessons to fit into your busy schedule now i personally was an econ major in college so i took a number of high-level statistics and math classes which brilliant is now helping me to brush up on but i know a lot less about the traditional sciences and as a huge av geek i'd really like to know more about how planes actually work that's why i've been checking out brilliance course on the physics of everyday objects which helps explain things like how planes fly if you want to do the same then you're in luck brilliant is accessible to all knowledge levels and you can start today for free visit brilliant.org kobe explains to do so and the first 200 of you who sign up will get 20 off a premium subscription so go to the link in the description to check it out thank you so much to my patrons for helping to make this video possible if you like my work and want to help the channel grow go ahead and check out this link right here and as always if you learned something new today leave a like and subscribe to keep learning and until i see you again don't forget to look up

Channel: Coby Explanes

Views: 665,531

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Id: WI38txqK6Is

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022