The Airbus A330 is a two engine, wide-body passenger aeroplane made by Airbus. It was designed at the same time as the Airbus A340, so it has the same body and wings.
It first flew in 1992 and the first one was delivered to Air Inter in 1994. It was a 300 series. Just after this, Airbus made the shorter 200 series. Now, Airbus has made a freighter version and a tanker version (which carries additional fuel so it can give some to other planes).
There are also 394 A330s that need to be made and given to airlines. Most of these are the smaller 200 series version.
Airlines wanted a new aeroplane to replace their McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aeroplanes which were getting old. So, Airbus started a new project in November 1987: the A330 and A340 programs. In the end, it was found that the A330 is almost 38% more fuel efficient than the DC-10.
Airbus designed the A330 to be in the market for ETOPS aeroplanes. This market already had planes like the Boeing 767. In November 2009, the A330 was the first aeroplane to get the ETOPS-240 approval, which means that the plane is allowed to fly up to 240 minutes away from any airport. This means it can fly over large oceans or places like the Antarctic where there are no airports nearby.
The A330's body and wings are nearly exactly the same as the smaller versions of the A340's wings and body, but they have different engines. The A330's body is also similar to the older Airbus A300, and the computers and systems (like the fly-by-wire system) are similar to the Airbus A320 family of aeroplanes. Also, both the A330 and A340 are built at the same place: Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in Toulouse in France.
The 1000th A330 was ordered at the 2008 Farnborough Air Show by Cathay Pacific.
The A330-200 was made to compete with Boeing's 767-300ER. It is a shorter version of the A330-300 and is like the A340-200.
In the 1990s, Airbus was not selling very many A340-200s (only 28 were built). So, Airbus used the body of the A340-200 and took the wings and engines of the A330-300. This made the plane much more efficient and the A330-200 was much more popular than the A340-200.
The tail fin (called the rudder) of the A330-200 is a little bit taller than the 300 version to produce the same torque as the A330-300.
It has the same MTOW (Maximum Take-Off Weight) as the A330-300, so it can take more fuel than the A330-300. This means the A330-200 can fly further than the A330-300. It has a range of 12,500 km which is the same as 6,750 nmi.
The A330 has three engine choices for airlines to choose from: two General Electric CF6-80E engines, two Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines or two Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines.
Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and was originally planned by its co-founders Randolph Fields and Alan Hellary to fly between London and the Falkland Islands. Soon after changing the name to Virgin Atlantic Airways, Fields sold his shares in the company after disagreements with Sir Richard Branson over the management of the company. The maiden flight from Gatwick Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport took place on 22 June 1984.
The airline along with Virgin Holidays is controlled by a holding company, Virgin Atlantic Limited, which is 51% owned by the Virgin Group and 49% by Delta Air Lines. It is administratively separate from other Virgin-branded airlines. Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited both hold Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Type A Operating Licences (AOC numbers 534 and 2435 respectively), both of which permit these airlines, operating as Virgin Atlantic Airways, to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.
Virgin Atlantic uses a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing wide-body aircraft and operates to destinations in North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Asia from its main base at Heathrow, and its secondary base at Manchester. The airline also operates seasonal flights from Glasgow and Belfast. Virgin Atlantic aircraft consist of three cabins: Economy, Premium (formerly Premium economy) and Upper Class (business).
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The Airbus A330 is a wide-body airliner made by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A330 twinjet in parallel with the...
Gemini Jets
Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline, along with its...
