Stories by Manu Venkat

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT - NEW YORK, NY. Manu is an avid air traveler, private pilot, and a dedicated AvGeek. He enjoys writing about aviation from a millennial's perspective, and co-manages AirlineReporter's social media and video projects. His day job is as a doctor in NYC.

https://www.airlinereporter.com

Are you in the mood for a trip down to South America? I was down in Brazil last year and got my first chance to fly a couple of local airlines. Brazil-based GOL Airlines was one of them. It isn’t a well known name outside of South America, but GOL is actually Brazil’s largest airline, […]

Just like the 2020 Olympics, the AvGeek sports circuit has been on hold while we’ve been socially distancing. What AvGeek sports circuit, you might ask? Well, there’s the 100m sprint to the gate, the luggage toss, and of course the “stuck-in-the-window-seat-with-someone-sleeping-in-the-aisle-seat-so-hold-your-pee-in-for-as-long-as-you-can” challenge. But there is one sport we can still enjoy from the comfort of […]

Air France A380

This is a continuation of our COVID fleet retirement series, where we tap our archive to commemorate the planes that retired early because of COVID. In our first installment of the series we said goodbye to the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747-400. In this story, we stick with the “4 engines 4 long haul” theme but switch gears from Boeing to Airbus.

With fewer people flying, plus the increasing use of fuel-efficient two-engine long-haul planes in airline fleets, older quad-engine planes are dropping like flies. No surprise, then that a number of airlines retired their Airbus A340 and A380s fleets. The A380 is a unique behemoth, the largest and arguably most-comfortable passenger plane around. And its older sister, the elegant A340, has captured AvGeeks eyes and hearts around the world.

Read on as we take a stroll down memory lane as we say goodbye to a few A340 and A380s.