Hello All,
This blog has not posted much lately. This is because not much has happened with commercial aviation orders that this blog believes can be written about. Per the recent IATA meeting, this will change by the end of the Farnborough Air Show in late July. Several carriers are preparing sizable twin-aisle passenger aircraft orders.
In the meantime, we can revisit another topic for aviation geeks: which airlines still operate passenger quad-jet aircraft (A340s, A380s, and 747s).
State of the global quad jet passenger fleet
The table below shows a summary of the in-service passenger quad-jet fleet:
GroupIn passenger ServiceShare (%)Emirates11637Lufthansa Group Airlines7123Other A3806521Other A3403611Other 747279Total315100Quad Jet aircraft in passenger service
Among airlines that operate at least 20 twin-aisle passenger aircraft, those with a quad jet share of 10% or above are Lufthansa (62 out of 101), Emirates (116 out of 249), Qantas (10 out of 50), Korean Air (17 out of 90), Singapore Airlines (12 out of 121), and British Airways (12 out of 126).
Emirates and Lufthansa Group Airlines operate close to 60% of all quad jets. One’s best bet to fly a quad jet involves a trip via Dubai, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, London, Seoul, or Sydney.
Reasons for operating quad jets
Emirates’ love for the A380 is well documented. The Lufthansa Group’s quad-heavy fleet results from political pressures to support the A340 program and a lingering dogma in the 2000s that long-haul operations required aircraft with four engines. Lufthansa is the largest A340 operator by far.
For the other carriers listed above, it is a business strategy to operate large aircraft. All large aircraft before the 777 had more than two engines.