Ab6
 

can anyone tell me what model of airbus is an AB6 exactly,

is it an a340-600?

sorry if its a stupid question haha, but i dont really have a clue :p

No, most airlines designate A300-600 as AB6. The A340-600 is usually designated as 346. The A300 was the first plane Airbus made (no longer being manufactured) while the -600 model was an update of it (but still a decade older than the A340-600). Unfortunately they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum (346 is the nicest plane Airbus makes, while AB6 is not).

Correct! AB6 is the official abbreviation for an Airbus A300-600.
It is usually used for medium-haul routes and has around 250 seats, while A340-600 is used for longhaul and has well above 300 seats.

The A300-600 was also used on shorter, high traffic-volume flights - a number of years ago, I had some LHR-FRA flights (on LH) that used this aircraft.

Exactly. And indeed, AA still flies its 34 A300-600s (AB6) predominantly on shorter routes (<2000 mi) from the East Coast to the Caribbean/Mexico/C America where they excel at freight hauling.

i am flying with Qatar Airways from doha to jakarta and it says plane: AB6... this is quite a long route and i didnt think qatar used old planes, do you think they will be using the a300-600 for this route?

Still in the schedule today.

If they say that's what they use, that's probably what they use
 

The airline's website says it uses the A300-600 between those cities, so I think you can expect that to be the aircraft type you'll be flying aboard. In the section about their fleet, Qatar Airways says the aircraft's range is 7,700km.

QR620 on the AB6 is DOH-KUL-CGK
QR626 on the 332 is DOH-SIN-CGK

DOH-KUL is under 8 hours, scheduled time. Within range.

yes. QR still has quite a few AB6s and AFAIK they aren't planning to phase them out anytime soon. It isn't the nicest plane, but still makes for a comfortable journey.

On a side note, whats the difference between an AB3 and an AB6? EK flew A300-600Rs (what does the "R" stand for?) and designated them as AB3s

Cheers

The R stands for "extended range" (but Boeing uses ER, so of course Airbus has to be different). The last model of the A300 was modified to include an extra fuel tank in the tailplane and this became the R model. The R can also stand for "reduced crew" as the original A300 had a 3 man cockpit, changed to be just 2 pilots (like all the current planes). But that change was actually in the -600 and not unique to the -600R.

where did u find the info about the actual flight numbers being specific planes? sorry but i cant find it on the site, dont think im being lazy

i can see on my plane tickets we are on qr626 so it would be interesting to see which other planes we will be on exactly, thanks mate

hi,

you can use [URL=http://www.amadeus.net/home/new/index.htm]Amadeus Timetables[/URL. Just enter your origin, destination, date of travel and airline and you will be given the aircraft type for specific flight numbers.


Cheers

Just go to www.qatarairways.com and look up the schedule for DOH-KUL and DOH-SIN, you'll find those flights.

And if you just search DOH-CGK, you find the flight number and the equipment too. Just that they conveniently forget to mention those are 1-stop flights.