OK sometimes the AV Geek in our Editors gets the better of them and our editorial bull pit, where all of our stories are discussed and dissected, turns into a geek fest for the airline industry. They just love swapping plane stories. And we get it, airplanes are a beautiful thing and being able to hop a plane in New York, have a meal and a sleep and then wake up in Tokyo never gets tiring. But the depth and breath of airplane and airline knowledge from our Editorial team is quite impressive.
So one of our smarter interns decided to capture some of these nuggets and put together a list of cool wide bodied airplane trivia. Why? Because it made an easy (and we think quite interesting) article. And one which will win you points on any airport layover.
- The A330 is the most widely flown wide bodied airplane with 836,763 annual flights in 2015 according to the IATA
- The next most popular wide bodied jet is the workhorse B777 which logged 726,699 flights in the same year
- Boeing holds the third spot as well with the older and smaller, yet still popular B767 coming in at 435,865 flights in 2015
- The Queen of the Skies, the venerable B747 logged 157,480 flights in 2015, but with most airlines retiring this beast those numbers will be down for 2016 and beyond
- And finally, the Airbus A340 comes in at fifth with 144,013 annual flights in 2015
It’s interesting to note that despite Emirates and other carriers reliance on the mega A380 it doesn’t make the list. However this list will change over the next few years as the B787 Dreamliner and A350 will replace the A340 and B747 as more popular wide bodied aircraft.
Now all of this begs the question. Just how many wide bodied aircraft are there? You’ll be surprised.
Airbus throughout its entire history has received 816 orders for the A300/310 family aircraft, 1,634 orders for A330s, 377 A340s, 810 A350s and 319 A380s. Boeing has inked firm contracts for 1,556 Boeing 747s, 1,189 Boeing 767s, 1,902 of their B777s and 1,210 Boeing 787s. These are staggering numbers which show you how popular these planes are and just how competitive the market actually is. Stay tuned because we will definitely be back with more plane stories.
