Finnair buys A343 from VS

[mcmbenjamin]

HELSINKI (AFX) - Finnair said it is acquiring an Airbus A340-300 plane from Virgin Atlantic that will enable it to increase capacity to Asia from July.

The aircraft will be the first A340 in its fleet.

Finnair currently has orders placed with Airbus for three A340-300 planes, which are not due to arrive until 2007/08.

-All the A343s are leaving. How many are left?

Shame the 343's I thought were the silent backbone of the fleet.
I also read today that VAA were considering Pakistahn as a poss new rout

Originally posted by G-VSKY 97
I also read today that VAA were considering Pakistan as a possible new route

Do you have a source for this 'inteligence'?

Originally posted by mcmbenjamin
-All the A343s are leaving. How many are left?

Not all, Ben - just the non-UCS ones with Arcadia (that'll be G-VSUN, G-VAEL & G-VFLY now, since G-VBUS is currently leased to VK)...

Cheers

Michael

I thought i heard a couple of years ago that they were going to the french military?

Originally posted by G-VSKY 97
Shame the 343's I thought were the silent backbone of the fleet.

Noooooooo, they are aweful aircraft. Give 'em away free I say.

Paul

[mitchja]

The full Finnair Press Release is here

Difficult to tell the exact numbers as it seems to have been lost a bit in translation.

Regards

Apparently G-VFLY is going to Finnair

Only seen Pakistan rumours on a.net and prune.

Originally posted by p17blo

Originally posted by G-VSKY 97
Shame the 343's I thought were the silent backbone of the fleet.

Noooooooo, they are aweful aircraft. Give 'em away free I say.

My lasting memory of them will be a flight back from HKG around 1997/98 in Upper when I was in the front of the rear UC section. On these long segments there are two crew, and shortly after takeoff, one of the pilots sat next to me, and he was clearly mistified by the IFE, so he asked me how it worked. I then spent ten minutes educating him on how to use the IFE. True story, but as he was a jolly Aussie chap and we both saw the irony of it. But to be honest, aren't we all mystified by the plethora of diferent IFE systems on all planes?

Didn't sleep a wink though.

Strangely I remember that flight more for an FA who was clearly rather unwell although she was trying to muddle through her job - I remember feeling pretty concerned about it at the time. Might have been better had she confined herself to crew rest.

Cheers, Howard