Why does thai airways plan to remove the a340-500's from their fleet?

Question

why do they have plans of retiring this magnificent plane?

and replace them with a330's?

Answer 1

The A340-500 was purchased for very long nonstop routes because of its range. Unfortunately, these routes are no longer profitable because of the high cost of fuel and Thai is dropping them. The routes lost money even with high load factors.

Without these routes, they no longer need the A340-500. It's more expensive to operate on shorter routes than two-engine aircraft.

Answer 2

It's a cost cutting plan to keep the airline in business while oil prices take-off. They will most probably be using longer-range more fuel-effiecent aircraft, such as the Boeing 777 they currently have in service and are on order. The 747 is also capable. Routes which are not operable using any aircraft other than the A340-500 will most proably be axed.

Answer 3

The A330 is more fuel efficient as it has 2 engines instead of 4 which the A340 has.  With fuel being expensive, airlines are doing what they can to eliminate any inefficiencies.  There are lots of similarities in the cockpit between the A330 and A340 so some pilots are certified to fly both types.