Qatar Airways to Launch A350 in 2014

Saturday, 21st December 2013 at 04:39am

Qatar Airways is not to be outperformed by its two biggest rivals, both from UAE, in the race to acquisition of the world's technologically-advanced airliners with one-time order of 80 A350 from Airbus Company it placed in 2007.

As early as middle of next year, Qantas Airways will hold the sole distinction in the aviation history when it takes delivery of the first A350 aircraft fresh from its factory in Toulouse, France.

Emirates and Etihad, both based in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, are the other two customers whose orders rival that of Qatar, in terms of size. Dubai-based Emirates had an outstanding order of 70 A350 aircraft while the Abu Dhabi-based flag carrier, Etihad Airways, has 62 aircraft on order.

Fabrice Bregier, Airbus CEO and President, gave updates recently on the airliner's latest development, stating that the first A350 would be ready to fly by end of February 2014.

Two A350 prototypes have already been put on test flights since the middle of this year.

The twin-engine A350 is the answer to Boeing's Dreamliner which met a number of debacles during the first few months of its commercial flights that resulted to the worldwide grounding of all B787 fleet by FAA.

According to the A350 program director, Didier Evrard, the cabin of the airliner is fully defined for its first customer, Qatar Airways, and they have done something that has never been seen before in any airliner.

The first A350 to hit the skies to be operated by Qatar Airways will be the A350-900 variant that can seat up to 300 passengers. The airline has an outstanding order of 43 of the -900 variant and another 37 for the -1000 variant, for a total of 80.

The stretched version of the A350, the -1000 variant will not enter service until mid-2017. It can seat up to 350 passengers on a three-class configuration and a maximum of 550 seats for an all-economy layout.

Aside from the -900 and -1000 variants, Airbus is also going to build a compact version of the airliner, the -800 variant, that can seat up to 276 passengers in a three-class layout.

The program director added that the most distinctive feature in the A350 airliner is its business class cabin which, he claimed, will surely become its biggest selling point to attract travelers.

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