page_title: Airbus A310
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Airbus A310 / Development / Background
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: A300 und A310 von Pan Am über den Pyrenäen
context_page_description: The Airbus A310 is a wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Airbus, then a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers.
  Airbus had demand for an aircraft smaller than the A300, the first Twinjet wide-body.
  On 7 July 1978, the A310 was launched with orders from Swissair and Lufthansa.
  On 3 April 1982, the first prototype conducted its maiden flight and it received its type certification on 11 March 1983.
  Keeping the same eight-abreast cross-section, the A310 is 6.95 m shorter than the initial A300 variants, and has a smaller 219 m² wing, down from 260 m².
  The A310 introduced a two-crew glass cockpit, later adopted for the A300-600 with a common type rating.
  It was powered by the same General Electric CF6-80 or Pratt & Whitney JT9D then PW4000 turbofans.
  It can seat 220 passengers in two classes, or 240 in all-economy, and can fly up to 5,150 nmi.
  It has overwing exits between the two main front and rear door pairs.
  In April 1983, the aircraft entered revenue service with Swissair and competed with the Boeing 767-200, introduced six months before.
  Its longer range and ETOPS regulations allowed it to be operated on transatlantic flights.
context_section_description: On 26 September 1967, the British, French, and West German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding to commence the joint development of the 300-seat Airbus A300. This collaborative effort resulted in the production of the consortium's first airliner, known as the Airbus A300. The A300 was a wide-body medium-to-long range passenger liner; it holds the distinction of being the first twin-engine wide-body aircraft in the world. The design was relatively revolutionary for its time and featured a number of industry firsts, making the first use of composite materials on a commercial aircraft; during 1977, the A300 became the first ETOPS-compliant aircraft, which was made possible due to its high performance and safety standards. The A300 would be produced in a range of models and sold relatively well to airlines across the world, eventually reaching a total of 816 delivered aircraft during its production life.
  During the development of the earlier A300, a range of different aircraft size and capacity were studied by the consortium; the resulting Airbus A300B proposal was one of the smaller options. When the A300B1 prototypes emerged, a number of airlines issued requests for an aircraft with greater capacity, which resulted in the initial production A300B2 version. As the A300 entered service, it became increasingly apparent that there was also a sizable market for a smaller aircraft; some operators did not have enough traffic to justify the relatively large A300, while others wanted more frequency or lower aircraft-mile costs at the expense of higher seat-mile cost (specifically Swissair and Lufthansa). At the same time, there was great pressure for Airbus to validate itself beyond the design and manufacture of a single airliner. In response to these desires, Airbus explored the options for producing a smaller derivative of the A300B2.
  In order to minimise the associated research & development costs for the tentative project, Airbus chose to examine several early design studies performed during the A300 program. The company ultimately chose to prioritise its focus on one option, which became known as the A300B10MC (standing for Minimum Change). As envisioned, the airliner's capacity was reduced to a maximum of 220 passengers, which was viewed at the time as being a desired capacity amongst many airlines. However, such a design would have resulted in a relatively small fuselage being mated to a comparatively large wing and oversized undercarriage; such an arrangement would have, amongst other things, made the aircraft consume an unnecessarily larger amount of fuel as it carried heavier weight than what was otherwise required.
  Another problem for the program was presented in the form of inflation, the rate of which in the United Kingdom (one of the early members of the Airbus consortium) was around 35 per cent during 1979–80. This factor was responsible for significantly raising the program's development costs and, as a knock-on effect, increase the per-unit cost of the resulting airliner. During the development of the A300, British manufacturer Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) had been appointed as the subcontractor to perform the manufacturing of the wing of the aircraft; shortly afterwards, the British government chose to withdraw from the newly formed venture during 1969. During 1977, HSA subsequently merged with three other British aircraft companies, resulting in the formation of British Aerospace (BAe). By this point, the British government had publicly indicated its intentions to rejoin the Airbus program. During May 1976, the French government entered into a series of discussions on cooperation, during which its representatives stated that the placing of an order by British Airways (BA) was a condition for the re-admission of the United Kingdom into Airbus Industrie as a full partner.
  However, both BA and Rolls-Royce had not relinquished their will to collaborate with the Americans in future aircraft endeavours and, in BA's case, procure American aircraft. During the late 1970s, BA sought to purchase two separate
caption: The A310 (background) is a shrunken version of the Airbus A300 (foreground)
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