Airbus A340-500

Updated: October 2026 – Four engines, a slim fuselage, no upper deck – and on the departure board a destination that is actually too far away for a nonstop flight. That was the territory of the Airbus A340-500. With it, Singapore Airlines flew the then longest scheduled route in the world for more than nine years, from Newark to Singapore. Today the type is one of the greatest rarities among Airbus widebody jets: only 34 were delivered, and most have long been in storage parks or scrapped. Here you learn how to reliably recognize the A340-500, which records it set and where the remaining aircraft are today.

What is the Airbus A340-500?

The A340-500 is the ultra-long-haul version of the A340 family. On December 8, 1997, Airbus gave the go-ahead for two new A340 variants at once: the heavily stretched A340-600 for many passengers and the A340-500 for extreme distances. Both share an enlarged wing, a reinforced center gear and new engines from the Rolls-Royce Trent 500 family.

The fuselage of the -500 was lengthened only moderately compared with the A340-300, by a good four meters to about 67.9 meters. Much more important was what is behind the fairings: the A340-500 can carry about half again as much fuel as the -300. In a typical three-class cabin with about 313 seats, that gives it roughly 16,670 kilometers of range – enough to connect cities that previously could only be reached with a stopover.

The A340-500 made its first flight in Toulouse on February 11, 2002, and certification followed on December 3, 2002. The standard version A340-541 is powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 553s. Later, Airbus offered a variant with an increased takeoff weight of up to 380 tonnes, the A340-500IGW (type designation A340-542) with more powerful Trent 556s. You can find more about the manufacturer on the page about Airbus, and more about the engine maker at Rolls-Royce.

A bumpy start: Emirates instead of Air Canada

Air Canada was actually intended to be the launch customer. But the Canadian airline went into insolvency in early 2003, and its delivery slipped back. So Emirates took on the role of the first operator and put the A340-500 into service still in 2003. With ten aircraft, the Dubai airline became the largest customer of the type and used it on prestigious long-haul routes, including the nonstop connection from Dubai to New York. Air Canada later received two aircraft, which it also leased to Brazil’s TAM.

Other operators included Etihad Airways, Thai Airways, Nigeria’s Arik Air with two aircraft leased from the Portuguese wet-lease provider Hi Fly, and Azerbaijan Airlines. Large Western European network airlines did not order the type; in Europe it was mainly Hi Fly that operated two aircraft. The customer list says a lot about the concept: the A340-500 only paid off for airlines that really wanted to fly extremely long routes.

The record: Singapore Airlines nonstop to Newark

No operator made the A340-500 as famous as Singapore Airlines. In February 2004, the airline started nonstop flights between Singapore and Los Angeles with the type. On June 28, 2004, the route that made aviation history followed: SQ21 from Newark to Singapore and SQ22 in the opposite direction.

The numbers were impressive. SQ21 spanned a great-circle distance of about 15,300 kilometers and was scheduled at a good 18 hours in the air, the opposite direction just under 18 hours on average. At launch, Singapore Airlines offered 181 seats in business class and an “Executive Economy.” In 2008 the airline reconfigured the cabins to 100 business class seats – the route was now of interest almost only to business travelers, and less weight on board helped the range.

In the long run, the math still did not work out. With high kerosene prices, the A340-500 burned enormous amounts of fuel on such long routes, just to carry its own fuel. On October 20, 2013, the last nonstop flight to Los Angeles ran, and on November 23, 2013 the Newark route ended as well. The airline sold its A340-500s back to Airbus as part of a larger deal involving new A380 and A350 orders. The Newark route only returned in 2018, then with the twin-engine A350-900ULR, a special version of the A350-900.

More about the world’s longest flights and why they are so hard to operate profitably can be found in the article Ultra-long-haul flights. The two endpoints have their own pages: Singapore Changi Airport and Newark Liberty Airport.

Why the A340-500 disappeared so early

The A340-500 was technically a successful aircraft, but it came at the wrong time. Three factors sealed its fate:

Deliveries peaked in 2005 with nine aircraft, after which only individual aircraft reached customers. In November 2011, Airbus declared the end of the entire A340 production; the last two A340-500s were delivered in 2012. What the twinjet rules mean is explained in the article ETOPS explained, and the big picture is drawn by the article about the end of the four-engine jets.

Reliably recognizing the A340-500

You run into the A340-500 so rarely today that you should check every sighting especially thoroughly. Three observations get you there.

For confirmation, look at the center gear between the main landing gears: on the -500 it has four wheels, on the -200 and -300 only two. In the end the registration decides, which you look up in a database. How that works is shown in the article Understanding aircraft registrations. General differences within the family and from the twin-engine sister A330 are explained in the guide A330 or A340: how to tell them apart.

The A340-500 compared with its siblings

Within the family, the A340-500 is something like the middle path in length, but the extreme version in range.

Feature	A340-300	A340-500	A340-600
ICAO type designator	A343	A345	A346
Length	63.69 m	about 67.9 m	about 75.4 m
Wingspan	60.30 m	63.45 m	63.45 m
Engine	CFM56-5C	Trent 553 / 556	Trent 556
Wheels on the center gear	2	4	4
Typical seat count	approx. 295	approx. 313	approx. 380
Range	approx. 12,400 km	approx. 16,670 km	approx. 14,450 km
Delivered	218	34	97

Striking: the A340-500 offers hardly more typical seats than the -300, but flies about a third farther – it is tuned for range, not capacity. You can find the even rarer original version with a short fuselage on the page about the A340-200.

Incident in Melbourne

One event from the type’s history is still a textbook case in the industry today. On March 20, 2009, an Emirates A340-500 with the registration A6-ERG took off in Melbourne. During takeoff preparation, a takeoff weight that was 100 tonnes too low had been entered into the system. The engines therefore delivered too little thrust, the aircraft accelerated too slowly, struck the runway with its tail and damaged installations beyond the runway end before it got airborne. After dumping fuel, the crew returned safely, and no one was injured. The Australian investigation authority ATSB classified the incident as an accident; the aircraft was repaired and kept flying for a few more years.

Retirement: the quick farewell

Hardly any widebody jet has had such a short scheduled career as the A340-500. Many aircraft were not even ten years old when they left service.

Operator	Period with the A340-500	Fate
Emirates	2003 to 2016	first aircraft returned to Airbus from 2013 and scrapped, the rest sold or stored
Singapore Airlines	2004 to 2013	fleet sold back to Airbus
Thai Airways	2005 to 2012	retired, partly taken over by the Thai armed forces
Etihad Airways	until July 2017	last aircraft ferried to Teruel (Spain)
Azerbaijan Airlines	long the last airline operator	retirement announced in 2022, status unclear

At Etihad, the era ended on July 28, 2017, with a flight from Rabat to Abu Dhabi; the aircraft then went to Teruel, where sister aircraft were already stored. An earlier Etihad A340-500 was used by the Italian Air Force as a VIP transport. The Thai armed forces also operate the type as a government aircraft.

Where retired long-haul jets end up and what happens to them is shown in the article about aircraft graveyards and boneyards.

Where you can still find the A340-500 today

As of October 2026, the A340-500 has practically vanished from scheduled airline service. Azerbaijan Airlines was considered the last airline with the type for many years and announced its retirement in 2022. The information on the current status contradicts itself; don’t assume you will find it in a schedule in a plannable way.

These opportunities are more realistic:

How to systematically track down such exceptional aircraft is explained in the guide Spotting rare aircraft; state aircraft in particular are the subject of the article Spotting government aircraft. For live tracking, you will find the tools in the article Flight tracking with ADS-B.

Photo tips for a rare encounter

If you get an A340-500 in front of your lens, you usually have only one chance. A few points help you make the best of it.

How to calculate the light at your spot is explained in the guide Planning sun position for your photo spot. And how to record rare sightings cleanly is shown in the article Documenting sightings and keeping a logbook.

Conclusion

The A340-500 was an aircraft for one very specific mission: connecting cities that are actually too far apart. With Singapore Airlines it achieved this spectacularly and flew the world’s longest scheduled route for years. Economically, though, the concept hardly paid off – high fuel burn, rising kerosene prices and strong twinjets ended its career after a few years. For spotters, that is exactly the appeal: with only 34 aircraft and hardly any scheduled deployments left, the A345 is among the hardest entries in the logbook.