A330

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 A340 quadjet. In June 1987, Airbus launched both designs with their first orders. The A330-300, the first variant, took its maiden flight in November 1992 and entered service with Air Inter in January 1994. The slightly shorter A330-200 variant followed in 1998. In 2014, Airbus launched the A330neo, re-engined with Trent 7000 turbofans, which entered service in November 2018. The A330 shares its airframe with the early A340 variants, having two engines instead of four, two main landing gear legs instead of three, lower weights and slightly different lengths. Both airliners have fly-by-wire controls, which was first introduced on the A320, as well as a similar glass cockpit. The A330 was Airbus's first airliner to offer a choice of three engines: the General Electric CF6, Pratt & Whitney PW4000, or the Rolls-Royce Trent 700.

The A330-300 has a range of 11,750 km or 6,350 nmi with 277 passengers, while the shorter A330-200 can cover 13,450 km or 7,250 nmi with 247 passengers. Later variants include the A330-200F dedicated freighter, the A330 MRTT military tanker, and the ACJ330 corporate jet. The A330 MRTT was proposed as the EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45 for the US Air Force's KC-X competition, but lost to the Boeing KC-46 in appeal after an initial win. As of December 2019, A330 orders stand at 1,823 of which 1,492 have been delivered and 1,443 remain in operation. Its largest operator is Turkish Airlines with 68 aircraft. The A330 has allowed Airbus to expand its wide-body market share. It competes with the Boeing 767 and smaller variants of the 777 and the 787. It is complemented by the larger Airbus A350 XWB which succeeded the A340.

Source: Wikipedia