A330 or A340? Spotting engine count, landing gear and variants

An Airbus widebody taxis to the runway: round nose, wide fuselage, winglets on the wingtips. Whether you are looking at an A330 or an A340 is not obvious at first glance – the two types are twins. Airbus developed them together, and they share the fuselage, the cockpit and almost the same wing. Still, a few features reliably separate them. This guide shows you how to tell the A330 and A340 apart, what to look for in poor visibility and how to place every variant from the A330-200 to the A340-600.

A330 or A340: the short answer

Count the engines. The A330 has two, the A340 four. This is the clearest feature, and in the air and on the ground you usually see it right away. When the engines are hard to make out – in backlight, at long distance or when the aircraft is taxiing straight toward you – the second feature helps: the A340 has a third landing gear leg in the center under the fuselage, the A330 does not.

You only need everything else – length, wingtips, vertical stabilizer, engine size – when you want to know which variant is in front of you.

Why the two types are so similar

In the late 1980s, Airbus wanted to serve two markets with as little development effort as possible: medium long-haul routes with high capacity and very long routes across oceans. Twin-engine aircraft faced strict restrictions on long overwater routes at the time, so the long-range version got four engines. Both programs launched together on June 5, 1987.

The result: both types have the same fuselage cross-section with a 5.64 m outer diameter, the same fly-by-wire cockpit and practically the same wing. The A340 flew first, on October 25, 1991, and entered service with Lufthansa and Air France in March 1993. The A330 followed with its first flight on November 2, 1992 and its scheduled-service debut in January 1994 with Air Inter.

After that, their paths diverged. With more reliable engines and relaxed rules for twinjets, the more economical A330 became a sales success, while the A340 fell behind modern twinjets such as the Boeing 777-300ER. Airbus ended the A340 program in November 2011 after delivering 377 aircraft. The A330, by contrast, lives on as the A330neo and, with more than 1,600 deliveries, is one of the most-built widebody jets.

Feature 1: count the engines

On the A330, exactly one large engine hangs under each wing. On the A340 there are two per wing, and they look noticeably smaller – on the A340-200 and -300 even strikingly slim.

• A330ceo (-200, -300): your choice of General Electric CF6-80E1, Pratt & Whitney PW4000 or Rolls-Royce Trent 700. Large, powerful nacelles.
• A330neo (-800, -900): exclusively Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 with a visibly larger diameter than on the ceo.
• A340-200 and -300: four CFM56-5C engines from CFM International. The nacelles are long and narrow – next to the A330, they look almost dainty.
• A340-500 and -600: four Rolls-Royce Trent 500s, much thicker than the CFM56s of the early versions.

The slim CFM56 nacelles of the A340-300 can be deceptive at a distance: from an oblique front angle, the inner engine sometimes hides the outer one. So check whether there is a second pylon under the wing. The guide Identifying engines explains how to recognize engines in general by nacelle, exhaust and fan.

Feature 2: the center landing gear

The second main feature is at least as reliable as the engines – and often easier to see when an aircraft is taxiing straight toward you or comes in on final approach from below.

• A330: nose gear with two wheels and two main gear legs with four wheels each. Nothing more.
• A340-200 and -300: an additional third leg in the center under the fuselage with two wheels. It sits on the fuselage centerline between the two main gear.
• A340-500 and -600: the center gear has grown into a four-wheel bogie because the aircraft are much heavier.

On a head-on landing, you see the center gear as a third group of wheels between the two outer ones. In side-on photos, it is often just a dark spot under the fuselage, but once you know where to look, you find it reliably. The post Landing gear as an identification feature gives an overview of all landing gear configurations from narrowbody to jumbo.

Feature	A330ceo	A330neo	A340-200/-300	A340-500/-600
Engines	2 × CF6, PW4000 or Trent 700	2 × Trent 7000	4 × CFM56-5C	4 × Trent 500
Center landing gear	none	none	yes, 2 wheels	yes, 4 wheels
Wingtips	classic winglets	curved sharklet shape	classic winglets	classic winglets
Wingspan	60.30 m	64.00 m	60.30 m	63.45 m
ICAO type codes	A332, A333	A338, A339	A342, A343	A345, A346

Feature 3: length and proportions

Length only becomes interesting once it is clear whether you are looking at an A330 or an A340. This is where it gets tricky, because several variants are almost the same length:

Variant	Length	Type code	Identification tip
A330-200	58.82 m	A332	short, stubby, taller vertical stabilizer
A330-800	58.82 m	A338	fuselage of the -200, but neo engines and sharklets
A330-300	about 63.7 m	A333	long fuselage, classic winglets
A330-900	about 63.7 m	A339	fuselage of the -300, neo engines and sharklets
A340-200	about 59.4 m	A342	short A340, extremely rare today
A340-300	about 63.7 m	A343	as long as the A330-300, but four engines
A340-500	about 67.9 m	A345	longer than the -300, Trent engines
A340-600	about 75.4 m	A346	extremely stretched fuselage

The A330-300 and A340-300 are practically the same length. If you only look at the fuselage length, you cannot tell them apart – here the engines and center landing gear decide. The A340-600, on the other hand, is unmistakable: at almost twelve meters longer than the -300, it looks almost overstretched, and the wings seem small in proportion.

The taller tail of the A330-200

The A330-200 is just under five meters shorter than the -300. So that the vertical stabilizer still has enough effect with the shorter lever arm, Airbus made it a good meter taller. Next to the short fuselage, the tail therefore looks conspicuously large. The A330-800 takes over the -200 fuselage and with it the same proportions.

The variants in detail

A330-200 and A330-300

The two classic A330s – often called “ceo” today – share the wing, cockpit and engine options. The A330-300 came first and is the long version; the A330-200 took off on its first flight in 1997 as a shorter variant with more range. Both carry add-on, upward-pointing winglets, which they share with the A340. The engine often gives away the airline: Lufthansa and Swiss, for example, fly their A330-300s with the Trent 700.

A330-200F, MRTT and special versions

The A330-200F freighter has a distinctive detail: a pronounced bulge under the nose. It houses the lower-mounted nose gear, so the cargo deck sits level on the ground. A normal A330 sits with a slight forward tilt. You will find more about freighter versions in the guide Identifying cargo aircraft. In military service, you encounter the A330 as the A330 MRTT tanker – recognizable by the refueling pods under the wings and the refueling boom at the tail. The guide Identifying tanker aircraft goes into more detail.

A330-800 and A330-900 (A330neo)

You recognize the A330neo by two things: the large Trent 7000 engines and the curved wingtips in sharklet style, which increase the wingspan to 64 meters. The A330-900 is the common version with the fuselage of the -300, the A330-800 the rare short variant. Many airlines also paint a dark mask around the cockpit windows of the neo, but that is a design choice and not a reliable feature. How the wingtip shapes differ in general is shown in the article Winglets, sharklets and raked wingtips.

A340-200 and A340-300

The early A340s are the “slim four-engine jets”: four CFM56-5Cs with long, narrow nacelles, winglets and a two-wheel center landing gear. With 218 built, the A340-300 was the most-built version and still shapes the picture today. The shorter A340-200 has disappeared from scheduled service; the few remaining examples fly mostly as government or VIP aircraft.

A340-500 and A340-600

With the second generation, Airbus stretched the A340 considerably: a larger wing with a 63.45 m wingspan, an enlarged tail, Trent 500 engines and a four-wheel center landing gear. At about 75.4 meters, the A340-600 is the longest Airbus ever built – longer than an A380 and a Boeing 747-400. The somewhat shorter A340-500 was built as an ultra-long-range aircraft; according to the available data, it no longer flies in commercial scheduled service.

Don’t confuse the A330 and A340 with other types

Besides the twin pair, there are two classic mix-ups:

• A350: The A350-900 also has two engines, but a more pointed nose with a dark window mask, smoothly upswept wingtips instead of add-on winglets and a more modern fuselage. The direct comparison is in the guide A350 or Boeing 787.
• Boeing 777 and 767: Boeing’s widebody jets have a more pointed, slightly sloping nose and different cockpit windows. You also recognize the 777 by its six-wheel main landing gear. The article Airbus or Boeing? summarizes the basic rules for Airbus versus Boeing.

Where you can see the A330 and A340 today

The A330 is still everywhere. At major hubs such as Frankfurt Airport, you see it daily, including with Lufthansa, Discover Airlines and Condor. The A330neo flies in Europe with TAP Air Portugal, among others, and Delta Air Lines brings it across the Atlantic.

The A340, on the other hand, is becoming a rarity. Lufthansa was the largest operator most recently, takes the A340-600 out of scheduled service in fall 2026 and, according to current plans, wants to keep the A340-300 in use until around 2028. At Zurich Airport, Swiss and Edelweiss still fly the A340-300 but are replacing it step by step. As of October 2026, then, the situation is this: if you want an A340 in your hangar, you should not wait much longer. Good locations are the Zeppelinheim viewing platform in Frankfurt, the Munich Airport visitors’ hill (Besucherhügel) and the Butzenbüel in Zurich.

The reliable order at the fence

For step 5, it is worth taking a look at the registration: how to find out an aircraft’s type, age and operator from its registration is shown in the guide Finding and tracking an aircraft by registration.

Common mistakes

• Looking only at length: The A330-300 and A340-300 are practically the same length. Length alone decides nothing.
• Overlooking hidden engines: From an oblique front angle, the inner CFM56 can hide the outer one. If you then count two, you take an A340-300 for an A330.
• Overrating the cockpit mask: A dark window surround is common on the A330neo, but it is paint and not present at every airline.
• Mistaking freighters for passenger aircraft: The bulge under the nose of the A330-200F is the sure sign – missing windows alone can also point to converted freighters.

Conclusion

The A330 and A340 are twins that differ unmistakably in two places: the number of engines and the center landing gear. If you check both, you are practically never wrong. For the variants, length, wingtips, engine size and the wheel count in the middle of the fuselage come into play. And because the A340 is disappearing from Europe’s fleets, it is worth logging every encounter right now. If you are still getting started, the guide Identifying aircraft types for beginners offers the right introduction.