The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body civil passenger aircraft developed and manufactured by Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturing consortium. It is very similar to the Airbus A330, but is equipped with four engines instead of two. Its development began in 1981, when it was still called TA11.

Its production was carried out in the United Kingdom, with parts made in Getafe, Spain and delivered to companies in Toulouse, France. In Germany, the rudder and rear fuselage of the A340 are produced. The A340 was launched in 1987, a long-range aircraft, as a complement to the short-range A320 and the medium-range Airbus A300. It was developed together with the Airbus A330 , which shares the same wing and fuselage structure, and the same technological concept as the A320 known as fly-by-wire. Instead of sticks like those found on Boeing family planes, the Airbus A340 has two side-sticks, one on the right side for the co-pilot and one on the left for the pilot. With the launch of the Boeing 777 in 1994, the Airbus A340 gained a worthy competitor, which led Airbus to develop new versions of the A340, launching the A340-500 and the A340-600 in 2001. In 2019, TAP Air Portugal replaced it with the new Airbus A330neo