A350-1000 Begins Demonstration Tour in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific
The A350-1000, the newest member of Airbus’ leading widebody family, has embarked on a three-week demonstration tour to the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region.
The demonstration tour follows the completion of a successful flight test campaign, which lasted less than one year and culminated in joint EASA and FAA type certifications, demonstrating the aircraft’s excellent design, performance and maturity. The A350-1000 tour comes ahead of the first customer delivery to Qatar Airways in the coming weeks.
During the tour, the A350-1000 flight test aircraft (MSN065) will visit 12 destinations to demonstrate the aircraft’s exclusive features to airlines. The itinerary will see it travel over 30,000 nautical miles / 55,500 kilometres, with stops in Doha, Muscat, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Hanoi, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney, Auckland, Tokyo and Manila.
The aircraft will stop for several days in Singapore, where it will be on static display from 6 to 8 February at the Singapore Airshow 2018.
MSN065 is one of three Airbus A350-1000 test aircraft and is equipped with a fully functional cabin (40 business class, 36 economy plus class and 219 comfort economy class seats). The demonstration flights will be operated by Airbus flight test crews.
The A350-1000 is the latest member of the A350 XWB Family, showing high level of commonality with the A350-900 with 95 percent common systems part numbers and the same Type Rating. As well as having a longer fuselage to accommodate 40 more passengers than the A350-900 (in a typical three-class configuration), the A350-1000 also features a modified wing trailing-edge, new six-wheel main landing gears and more powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines. Along with the A350-900, the A350-1000 is shaping the future of air travel by offering unprecedented levels of efficiency and unrivalled comfort in its ‘Airspace’ cabin. With its additional capacity, the A350-1000 is perfectly tailored for some of the busiest long-haul routes. To date, 11 customers from five continents have placed orders for a total of 169 A350-1000s.