In recent years, a combination of age and shifting operational trends has resulted in the Airbus A340 becoming increasingly obsolete in the modern commercial aviation sector. While Swiss leisure carrier Edelweiss Air has stuck with the quadjet longer than most, its withdrawal has now begun.
Indeed, yesterday saw the airline ferry the first of its five examples of the Airbus A340-300 to Teruel Airport, a Spanish facility that, over the years, has become synonymous with long-term storage and, for many aircraft, the end of the road. Going forward, the Airbus A350-900 will form the backbone of Edelweiss Air’s long-haul widebody fleet, with these twinjets carrying more passengers in a more efficient way.
The Beginning Of The End
As reported by aeroTELEGRAPH, the first Edelweiss Air Airbus A340 to be sent to storage bears the registration HB-JMG. According to fleet data made available by ch-aviation, this widebody quadjet is almost 22 years old, and joined Edelweiss in 2016 after spending the first 13 years of its career at SWISS. Its final revenue-earning flights took place earlier this month, and came in the form of a trip to Africa.
Indeed, Flightradar24 shows that it departed Edelweiss’ base in Zürich (ZRH) on the evening of October 4 as WK78, and touched down in Mauritius (MRU) on October 5 after a stopover at Victoria Airport (SEZ) in the Seychelles. After five hours in Mauritius, it retraced its steps as WK79 and touched down in Zürich on the morning of October 6. According to aeroTELEGRAPH, Edelweiss Air said at the time that:
“With the landing in Zurich, a piece of Edelweiss history comes to an end. It has circumnavigated the globe almost 900 times, covered more than 36 million kilometers, and spent over 43,000 hours in the air.”
Edelweiss & The A340
A week after HB-JMG’s emotional arrival back in Switzerland, yesterday saw the 22-year-old Airbus A340 make what will likely be its final flight for the foreseeable future. According to Flightradar24, it left Zürich at 14:32 on October 13 as WK5134, and touched down at Tetuel Airport (TEV) in Spain at 16:09 that afternoon, with aeroTELEGRAPH noting that the pilots performed a wing wave to say goodbye.
Teruel is not like other large Spanish airports, as, while it is home to plenty of airliners of various different shapes and sizes, none of them are used to connect the facility to destinations further afield. Instead, it is used as a maintenance and storage facility, with its dry climate making it ideal for this role.
After the departure of HB-JMG to storage in Spain, Edelweiss Air is left with four more examples of the Airbus A340-300. At the time of writing, three of them were airborne, but the fourth was on the ground in Zürich and hadn’t flown for more than a day. The jet in question is HB-JME, which arrived from Tampa (TPA) yesterday afternoon, and it will be interesting to see when it gets back in the skies.
The Next Generation
Edelweiss Air is retiring its Airbus A340s as part of a fleet modernization program that will see them replaced by modern widebody twinjets from the Airbus A350 family. The Swiss leisure carrier received its first example of the A350-900 model back in March of this year, and now has three in its fleet.
Going forward, the airline has another three examples of the type on order, and its website says that these aircraft “are expected to be added by the end of 2026.” As well as these six aircraft being more numerous and fuel-efficient than the five A340s they’re replacing, they will also offer more seats.
Indeed, current fleet data made available by aeroLOPA shows that they can seat as many as 339 passengers in a two-class configuration. This layout consists of 30 six-abreast (2-2-2) business class flatbeds and 309 nine-abreast (3-3-3) economy seats, with 63 in the latter cabin marketed as ‘Economy Max’ with extra legroom. Meanwhile, Edelweiss Air’s A340s only have 27 business and 287 economy class seats.