With some 74 Airbus A340s listed as active in 2022, just 14 of them are the longer -600 variant. With just seven different operators of these 14 aircraft, let's take a look at who's flying the aircraft and what kind of routes are being flown.

Mahan Air

Data from Planespotters.net tells us that Iranian carrier Mahan Air has the highest number of active A340-600s. While seven A340-600s are listed as currently in the fleet, just four appear to be active as the remaining three have been designated as parked. With an average age of 19-and-a-half years, many of these aircraft began their lives with UK operator Virgin Atlantic.

The seven aircraft are registered as follows:

• EP-MME
• EP-MMF
• EP-MMG
• EP-MMH
• EP-MMI
• EP-MMQ
• EP-MMR

These aircraft have been flying from their hub at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport to cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Foshan, Dubai, and Sulaimaniyah.

Other passenger operations

Aside from Mahan Air, it doesn't appear that any other passenger carrier currently has more than one active A340-600. Spanish long-haul charter carrier Plus Ultra operates a single two-class -600 registered as EC-NFQ. This jet appears to have been flying between Chengdu and Madrid in recent times. One other passenger operator is Nigeria's Azman Air with its -600 registered 5N-AAM. Although it hasn't flown in nearly a month, the jet operated a few domestic flights in December, as well as a flight to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

All other "passenger" operators of the A340-600 are configured for VIP and/or Head of State operations. These include the jets flying with AZA and Sky Prime. While one jet registered TF-MFC is listed as active with Air Atlanta Icelandic, it doesn't appear to have any recent flight activity.

European Cargo's preighter ops

An entity by the name of European Cargo is responsible for the operations of five A340-600s. Data indicates that these jets are operated by a firm by the name of Maleth-Aero and are used as preighters - or "passenger freighters." These are passenger aircraft that have been modified (seats removed) for cargo operations.

While some of European Cargo's A340-600s, like 9H-NHS, have spent recent weeks on the ground, other aircraft like 9H-EAL and 9H-PPE have been flying regularly between Bournemouth in the UK and Fuzhou in China.

Some of these jets previously flew for Virgin Atlantic but were rescued from retirement in order to carry medical supplies in support of the ongoing global health crisis.

Unlikely to return

Outside of our 14 jets listed as active, there are a number of additional A340-600s that are sitting in long-term storage, unlikely to return to the skies. These include jets previously flown by Lufthansa and South African Airways.

It was previously revealed that Lufthansa had plans to reactivate its A340-600 fleet- although plans such as these are always subject to change. Speaking to Simple Flying in November 2021, a Lufthansa Spokesperson noted that the airline wanted to have the jets flying in January- although this doesn't appear to have materialized.

“Five of the A346s will be reactivated for the summer flight schedule for Munich. Since the five cannot be reactivated all at the same time, the first ones will be available earlier. According to current planning, these will be deployed successively from Frankfurt, starting in January. For the summer flight plan, all five will operate from Munich.”

As you can see by the airline's statement, summer may still be an option, depending on the global travel situation.

With the ongoing shift to more efficient twinjets, it appears that opportunities to fly this type have mostly been eliminated. The -600's smaller siblings, however, appear to still be flying in larger numbers.

Have you flown this type before? Share your A340-600 experiences in the comments.