Northwest
Airlines Airbus A330-223
N855NW (c/n 621)
The Airbus A330-300
series was developed from the original A300 in 1992. It was
basically a
long range version of the
earlier initial Airbus product, but was some 33 ft longer, has a full
EFIS
cockpit, an enlarged
wing with greater sweep and wingtip winglets. The 330-200 series
as used
by Northwest is a
slightly shorter version than the -300 and was first produced in
1997. It has a
maximum
passenger capacity of 381. NWA operates them from the U.S.
to both the Far East
and
Europe. This very nice shot by Royal S. King is tantamount to
waving a red flag at a bull,
inasmuch as it was taken
(in April 2005) at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac)
in the heart of
Boeing country.
Footnote
on Northwest Airlines:
On 11 September 2005
Northwest Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it
restructured itself in
the post 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina worlds. It became the fourth
airline to
do so (the others were United, USAir and
Delta). The airline is seeking to make savings in the
region of $1.4 billion annually (that's a big
region), in order to return to profitability. This is certainly
a tall
order with today's jet fuel prices and has entailed asking both pilots
and
mechanics to accept
reduced
salaries............a solution neither, at the moment (early 2006) is
willing to take. The saga
continues............but for how long?