Farewell Cover Girl

I see 346 no 3 has now left the fleet - gone to MNL before heading off into the sunset.

Wonder who will buy them, are the other 2 back flying yet??

Think the other two have gone into storage

So sad, flew on her last week and she was as good as new. I even commented on her condition to the FSM and she agreed that A346 is her favourite.

It is a shame we'll miss them

There not all going are they? Would have thought the 343's would have gone first.

Some of the A343s are owned rather than leased like the A346s hence their earlier departure.

Also these were the very first A340-600's and by their nature, were overweight which impacts overall fuel consumption. The later planes shift this excess weight by process and design improvements throughout the life of the aircrafts production run.

This would be the real reason to shift these planes first. TBH I would expect to see an accelerated A346 fleet retirement when the 789's start coming online from 2014.

IIRC 343 fuel burn is around 6 tons/hour vs 9 for he 346.

I was on an IB A346 at the weekend. The VS ones are a million miles better - shame to see them go, especially when there are much worse planes flying around.

And the IB one i was on was only 2 years old! Just goes to show how much VS looks after their kit compared to other airlines.