Airbus A330 Engines: Which Do These Airliners Use & Who Makes Them?

The Airbus A330 is an interestingly positioned aircraft in European aviation major Airbus' current lineup of passenger planes. Introduced in 1992 as a successor to Airbus' A300 series, the A330 remains the company's oldest widebody jet model, which is still in production. In terms of overall age, it is second only to the Airbus A320 series, which has been around since 1987. The A330 also had a bigger (and longer) sibling — the Airbus A340 — which made its first flight a year earlier, in 1991, but is no longer in production.

With more than 1,800 orders and 1,600 confirmed deliveries as of January 2025, the Airbus A330 is one of the most popular widebody airplanes currently in service. In the initial days of its arrival, the Airbus A330 competed against the Boeing 767. Today, the latest variant of the plane — the Airbus A330 Neo — locks horns with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

This latest generation of the Airbus A330 is offered in two options: the A330-800 and the longer A330-900. Interestingly, both these variants of the A330 Neo get the same engine option: the Rolls Royce Trent 7000. As evident from the name, the engines for the newest variants of the Airbus A330 are supplied by Rolls-Royce. These engines are exclusively used by the A330.

As the seventh member of Rolls Royce's Trent family of engines, the A330's Trent 7000 engines deliver between 68,000 to 72,000 lbs of thrust. These engines help to burn 12% less fuel than the older generations of the A330 did, while also being significantly quieter.

While the latest Airbus A330 models are powered by the newly developed Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, Airbus previously offered customers three engine options. These options included the General Electric CF6-80E1 (General Electric CF6), the Pratt & Whitney PW4164/8 (Pratt & Whitney PW4000), and the Rolls-Royce Trent 700.

Airbus offered the original A330 in two major variants; the A330-200 and the A330-300 series. There were several sub-variants within these that had more specific model numbers. Sub-variants of the A330-200 included the A330-201, -202, -203, -223, and -243. There were nine different variants of the A330-300 series as well; including the A330-301, -302, -303, -321, -322, -323, -341, -342, and the -343.

While these model numbers may appear confusing to laypersons, these numbers do have meaning attached to them. The last digit refers to the engine thrust rating of the engine, while the middle digit is a direct reference to the family of engines being used. The middle digit "0" refers to the General Electric engines, the "2" relates to engines from Pratt & Whitney, and the "4" refers to the Rolls-Royce Trent engine.

Throughout the lifetime of the first-generation Airbus A330, all three engines received periodic upgrades and customizations for better performance and efficiency.

The Airbus A330 lineup has used four engines to power variants of the aircraft in its three-decades of service. While the first generation A330 used jet engines from all three manufacturers, the newer edition of the Airbus A330 is exclusively powered by the Rolls Royce Trent 7000 engine.