A330 VIP

The Airbus A330 is a two engine, wide-body passenger airplane made by Airbus. It was designed at the same time as the Airbus A340, so it has the same body and wings.

It first flew in 1991 and the first one was delivered to Air Inter in 1994. It was a 300 series. Just after this, Airbus made the shorter 200 series. Airbus has made a freighter version, first made in 2001, and a tanker version, first made in 2007 (which carries additional fuel so it can give some to other planes).

Airlines wanted a new airplane to replace their McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airplanes which were getting old. So, Airbus started a new project in November 1987: the A330 and A340 programs. In the end, it was found that the A330 is almost 38% more fuel efficient than the DC-10.

Airbus designed the A330 to be in the market for ETOPS airplanes. This market already had planes like the Boeing 767. In November 2009, the A330 was the first airplane to get the ETOPS-240 approval, which means that the plane is allowed to fly up to 240 minutes away from any airport. This means it can fly over large oceans or places like the Antarctic where there are no airports nearby.

The A330's body and wings are nearly exactly the same as the smaller versions of the A340's wings and body, but they have different engines. The A330's body is also similar to the older Airbus A300, and the computers and systems (like the fly-by-wire system) are similar to the Airbus A320 family of airplanes. Also, both the A330 and A340 are built at the same place: Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in Toulouse in France.

The 1000th A330 was ordered at the 2008 Farnborough Air Show by Cathay Pacific.

Airbus thinks that it will keep building the A330 until at least 2015