Airbus A340-200
The short one — the only A340 with a wingspan longer than its fuselage · First flight 1992 · In service 1993
The A340-200 is the short-fuselage member of the original A340 pair, launched together with the A330 in 1987. It shares the -300's wing, glass cockpit and four CFM56-5C engines but is 4.3 m shorter, which makes it the only A340 whose 60.3 m wingspan is longer than its own fuselage.
It first flew on 1 April 1992, and Lufthansa took the first delivery in February 1993. Seating around 210–250 passengers in three classes, it traded capacity for range and was flown by carriers such as Lufthansa, Air France, Sabena, Cathay Pacific, EgyptAir, Royal Jordanian and South African Airways.
Mainstream airlines soon preferred the larger -300, and only 28 A340-200s were built. Their range later made several of them government transports, and one was completed as the one-off, extra-long-range A340-8000.
