After successful completion of the 4,500 miles (KORD-EDDF) flight (see my previous post, if you wish); I wrap up, via this post, my initial exposure to this (nice) iniBuilds A340-300 via a very short but RW flight that Edelweiss Air (a Swiss leisure and charter airline and the sister company of Swiss International Air Lines and a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group) operates in Costa Rica, curiously, ~6,000 miles away from the airline's home base and headquarters, Zurich, Switzerland.

Costa Rica is a small (but fascinating) country, in the Central American portion of North America, bordered by two different oceans: Pacific Ocean on its west and Atlantic Ocean on its east. It is a mountainous country, replete with dense tropical forests and many (volcanic) mountain ranges that form its backbone. For this flight today, mimicking a (RW) Edelweiss Air flight; we fly over a big segment of these Costa Rican mountains. We do this while ensconced in the comfort of an Airbus A340-300...🙂...See my shot #s (3/4/5/6) for a few interior pictures of this A340's cabin. The A340-300 cabin, as I recall (and also shown below), is typically configured in 3-classes: Business (shot #4), Premium Economy (shot #5; increased legroom and wider seats compared with Economy), and Economy (shot #6). My Personal recollections are mostly from the Sardine (Economy) class...🙂...The longer A340-600 variant (we need to wait for the Aerosoft/ToLiss version) should also simulate the (luxurious) First Class up front, absent in this A340-300. 

I've picked Edelweiss Air because, first of all, I like flowers on airplane fuselages...🙂...and then the "Edelweiss" is indeed a special flower (see pictures of it on the airframe images below). I'm especially fond of flowers and plants that are "survivors". Edelweiss is special because it is tough and resilient. It thrives in harsh alpine conditions, making it a symbol of courage and strength, while its name, which combines the German words for "noble" and "white," signifies purity. It can withstand extreme conditions like frost, strong winds, and high sunlight, earning it the nickname "eternal flower". It grows in high-altitude areas such as the Alps, Himalayas, and other mountain ranges, often on (inhospitable) rocky limestone cliffs.

Back to A340: There are now interestingly a dozen or so extremely short (lasting an hour or two) A340 flights operating in various parts of the world. The world's shortest scheduled A340 service (by Edelweiss) is San José-to-Liberia, within Costa Rica. The assigned a/c is A340-300, besides the 20 or so flights for this week, I found on FlightAware, operated by (domestic) Cessna 208s. Edelweiss conducts weekly triangular service, flying Zurich->San José->Liberia->Zurich.

In this post, I've selected to replicate the "45 min" flight sandwiched between the two (11-12)-hour flights: Zurich->San José: (12h 5m) -> San José->Liberia: (45 minutes) -> Liberia->Zurich: (11h 5m).

After Edelweiss Air retired its MD-80s in 1999, it has now become an all-Airbus airline. Moreover, its long-haul fleet is still dominated by A340-300s (one of which you see below), giving (even) Lufthansa a good run for the money...🙂...While the quadjet A340s are now operated only by just a few airlines that you can count on one hand...🙂... (Lufthansa, Edelweiss Air, Mahan Air, Kam Air); Edelweiss inaugurated, earlier this year, their first flight ever from Zurich to Seattle (non-stop A343 service).

So, here we go, as I've reversed the direction of the flight, at my discretion...🙂..., of the (San José->Liberia) Edelweiss route; departing, instead, from Liberia (MRLB) and travelling to San José (MROC). Additionally, I have created a custom Waypoint for the highest mountain of Costa Rica, Cerro Chirripó, located about 50 miles further southeast of San José (see shots below of iniBuilds EFB Map and MSFS EFB Map). I've done so by first defining (and storing) a unique identifier ("ABC1"; see cockpit ND display) along with its (LAT/LONG) coordinates via the DATA page of the Airbus FMC and then inserting "ABC1" into the F-PLN page. 

I found the terrain and topography of Costa Rica, quite fascinating (fairly well-rendered by MSFS scenery). I have included a few images (shot #s 12/13/14) of my overfly of Cerro Chirripó summit, which resembled well, from my vantage point, the (RW) images I found on-line for it.  

I've landed on ILS Z Runway 07 of San José (MROC) airport (see ILS chart, below, from the iniBuilds EFB). The (iniBuilds) A340-300 performed flawlessly, for this entire flight (within my scope of knowledge), from takeoff to touchdown. It was a short, sweet, and scenic flight indeed...while helping me, in the process, learn the geography of Costa Rica. 

[BTW, I found two (nice) A340-300 (iniBuilds) livery packs available "free" in the Marketplace for all of us, and particularly useful for me, myself being in the Xbox; without access to Flightsim.to.]

Thanks for viewing and hope you enjoy...!

Edited October 11, 2025Oct 11 by P_7878

Very fine shots, but to say a 100 miles fly is not typical for a A343..

But for this we have a Simulator so we can do whatever we want to do  😁

Like the livery - by the way !

cheers 😉

pmplayer and John: Thanks for the responses.

 

6 hours ago, pmplayer said:

Very fine shots, but to say a 100 miles fly is not typical for a A343..

But for this we have a Simulator so we can do whatever we want to do  😁

Like the livery - by the way !

cheers 😉

Appreciated the comment.

Yes, 100 miles in the A340 is a contradiction in terms ...🙂...but, you see, pmplayer, I had to take our recently acquired 5-month kitten to his first Vet visit yesterday...so my long-haul pilotage duties had to be set aside for more significant tasks around...🙂...

Cheers...!