6 month delay for A350
AIRBUS said it will stop making its A340 long-haul four-engine aircraft, which has failed to match Boeing's 777.
"We have accepted reality. We have not sold any A340s for nearly two years," Airbus finance director Hans Peter Ring said during a presentation on the third-quarter results of Airbus parent company EADS.
The abandoning of the programme will allow Airbus to write back into its books a provision of 192 million euros ($257 million) it had made on the programme.
The A340 first flew in April 1992 and in 1993 it scored a record for the longest non-stop flight, between Paris and Auckland.
The Boeing 777 launched two years later and had the same capacity but with only two engines it was more fuel-efficient.
Airbus parent company EADS announced overnight a six-month delay in first deliveries of its A350 long-haul jetliner, designed to compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, but raised its outlook for the year after third-quarter profits surged.