I appologise in advance for what seems, even to me to be a silly question but recently I've been reading about the new MTOW increase on the A330-300 to 242t and according to the airbus website "The A330-300’s optional fuel capacity increase will be achieved by
activating the centre wing tank for the first time on this model"
Airbus offers new 242 tonne A330 takeoff-weight capability to extend market coverage | Airbus Press release
Is it true that the A333 has always had a centre tank installed, albeit never actually used, or was this just a byproduct of franco-english translation?
I would've thought the weight/ delta burn penalties for an empty tank sitting in the structure would have been a factor, but then again, there are various unused A340 design components, hard points etc lurking within the A330 airframe as a result of assembly line commonality, so who knows!
Thanks in advance