Airbus A350

The Airbus A350 is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design proposed in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the Airbus A330 with composite wings, advanced winglets, and new efficient engines. Due to inadequate market support, Airbus switched in 2006 to a clean-sheet extra wide body (XWB) design, powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent XWB high bypass turbofan engines. The prototype first flew on 14 June 2013 from Toulouse, France. Type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was obtained in September 2014, followed by certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) two months later.

The A350 is the first Airbus aircraft largely made of carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers. The fuselage is designed around a 3-3-3 nine-across economy cross-section, an increase from the eight-across A330/A340 2-4-2 configuration. (The A350 has 3-4-3 ten-across economy seating on select aircraft.) It has a common type rating with the A330. The airliner has two variants: the A350-900 typically carries 300 to 350 passengers over a 15,750-kilometre (8,500-nautical-mile) range, and has a 283-tonne (624,000 lb) maximum takeoff weight (MTOW); the longer A350-1000 accommodates 350 to 410 passengers and has a maximum range of 16,700 kilometres (9,000 nmi) and a 322-tonne (710,000 lb) MTOW.

On 15 January 2015, the first A350-900 entered service with Qatar Airways, followed by the A350-1000 on 24 February 2018 with the same launch operator. As of January 2026, Singapore Airlines is the largest operator with 65 aircraft in its fleet, while Turkish Airlines is the largest customer with 110 aircraft on order. A total of 1,529 A350 family aircraft have been ordered and 700 delivered, of which 699 aircraft are in service with 38 operators. The global A350 fleet has completed more than 2 million flights on more than 1,365 routes, transporting more than 530 million passengers with no fatalities and one hull loss in an airport-safety-related incident. It succeeds the A340 and competes against Boeing's large long-haul twinjets, the Boeing 777, its future successor, the 777X, and the 787 Dreamliner.

Development

Background and early designs

Airbus initially rejected Boeing's claim that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner would be a serious threat to the Airbus A330, stating that the 787 was just a reaction to the A330 and that no response was needed. When airlines urged Airbus to provide a competitor, Airbus initially proposed the "A330-200 Lite", a derivative of the A330 featuring improved aerodynamics and engines similar to those on the 787. The company planned to announce this version at the 2004 Farnborough Airshow, but did not proceed.

On 16 September 2004, Airbus president and chief executive officer Noël Forgeard confirmed the consideration of a new project during a private meeting with prospective customers. Forgeard did not give a project name, and did not state whether it would be an entirely new design or a modification of an existing product. Airline dissatisfaction with this proposal motivated Airbus to commit €4 billion to a new airliner design.

On 10 December 2004, Airbus' shareholders, EADS and BAE Systems, approved the "authorisation to offer" for the A350, expecting a 2010 service entry. Airbus then expected to win more than half of the 250-300-seat aircraft market, estimated at 3,100 aircraft overall over 20 years. Based on the A330, the 245-seat A350-800 was to fly over a 8,600 nmi (15,900 km; 9,900 mi) range and the 285-seat A350-900 over a 13,900 km (7,500 nmi; 8,600 mi) range. Fuel efficiency would improve by over 10% with a mostly carbon fibre reinforced polymer wing and initial General Electric GEnx-72A1 engines, before offering a choice of powerplant. It had a common fuselage cross-section with the A330 and also a new horizontal stabiliser.

On 13 June 2005 at the Paris Air Show, Middle Eastern carrier Qatar Airways announced that they had placed an order for 60 A350s. In September 2006 the airline signed a memorandum of understanding with General Electric (GE) to launch the GEnx-1A-72 engine for the new airliner model. Emirates sought a more improved design and decided against ordering the initial version of the A350.

On 6 October 2005, the programme's industrial launch was announced with an estimated development cost of around €3.5 billion. The A350 was initially planned to be a 250 to 300-seat twin-engine wide-body aircraft derived from the existing A330's design. Under this plan, the A350 would have modified wings and new engines while sharing the A330's fuselage cross-section. For this design, the fuselage was to consist primarily of aluminium-lithium rather than the carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) fuselage on the Boeing 787. The A350 would see entry in two versions: the A350-800 with a 8,800 nmi (16,300 km; 10,100 mi) range with a typical passenger capacity of 253 in a three-class configuration, and the A350-900 with 7,500 nmi (13,900 km; 8,600 mi) range and a 300-seat three-class configuration. The A350 was designed to be a direct competitor to the Boeing 787-9 and 777-200ER.

The original A350 design was publicly criticised by two of Airbus's largest customers, International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) and GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). On 28 March 2006, ILFC President Steven F. Udvar-Házy urged Airbus to pursue a clean-sheet design or risk losing market share to Boeing and branded Airbus's strategy as "a Band-aid reaction to the 787", a sentiment echoed by GECAS president Henry Hubschman. In April 2006, while reviewing bids for the Boeing 787 and A350, the CEO of Singapore Airlines (SIA) Chew Choon Seng, commented that "having gone through the trouble of designing a new wing, tail, and cockpit, [Airbus] should have gone the whole hog and designed a new fuselage".

Airbus responded that they were considering A350 improvements to satisfy customer demands. Airbus's then-CEO Gustav Humbert stated, "Our strategy isn't driven by the needs of the next one or two campaigns, but rather by a long-term view of the market and our ability to deliver on our promises." As major airlines such as Qantas and Singapore Airlines selected the 787 over the A350, Humbert tasked an engineering team to produce new alternative designs. One such proposal, known internally as "1d", formed the basis of the A350 redesign.

Redesign and launch

On 14 July 2006, during the Farnborough International Airshow, the redesigned aircraft was designated "A350 XWB" (Xtra-Wide-Body). Within four days, Singapore Airlines agreed to order 20 A350 XWBs with options for another 20 A350 XWBs.

The proposed A350 was a new design, including a wider fuselage cross-section, allowing seating arrangements ranging from an eight-across low-density premium economy layout to a ten-across high-density seating configuration for a maximum seating capacity of 440–475 depending on variant. The A330 and previous iterations of the A350 would only be able to accommodate a maximum of eight seats per row. The 787 is typically configured for nine seats per row. The 777 accommodates nine or ten seats per row, with more than half of recent 777s being configured in a ten-across layout that will come standard on the 777X. The A350 cabin is 12.7 cm (5.0 in) wider at the eye level of a seated passenger than the 787's cabin, and 28 cm (11 in) narrower than the Boeing 777's cabin (see the Wide-body aircraft comparison of cabin widths and seating). The redesigned composite fuselage allows for higher cabin pressure and humidity, and lower maintenance costs.

On 1 December 2006, the Airbus board of directors approved the industrial launch of the A350-800, -900, and -1000 variants. The delayed launch decision was a result of delays to the Airbus A380 and discussions on how to fund development. EADS CEO Thomas Enders stated that the A350 programme was not a certainty, citing EADS/Airbus's stretched resources. However, it was decided programme costs are to be borne mainly from cash-flow. First delivery for the A350-900 was scheduled for mid-2013, with the -800 and -1000 following on 12 and 24 months later, respectively. New technical details of the A350 XWB were revealed at a press conference in December 2006. Chief operating officer, John Leahy indicated existing A350 contracts were being re-negotiated due to price increases compared to the original A350s contracted. On 4 January 2007, Pegasus Aviation Finance Company placed the first firm order for the A350 XWB with an order for two aircraft.

The design change imposed a two-year delay into the original timetable and increased development costs from US$5.5 billion (€5.3 billion) to approximately US$10 billion (€9.7 billion). Reuters estimated the A350's total development cost at US$15 billion (€12 billion or £10 billion). The original mid-2013 delivery date of the A350 was changed, as a longer than anticipated development forced Airbus to delay the final assembly and first flight of the aircraft to the third quarter of 2012 and second quarter of 2013 respectively. As a result, the flight test schedule was compressed from the original 15 months to 12 months. A350 programme chief Didier Evrard stressed that delays only affected the A350-900 while the -800 and -1000 schedules remained unchanged. Airbus' 2019 earnings report indicated the A350 programme had broken even that year.