Airbus A350
Updated: Wikipedia source
The Airbus A350 is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design, which was 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 April 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 1,579 A350 family aircraft have been ordered, of which 714 units have been delivered and 713 units 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.