The 4th A350 flight-prototype MSN4 will be painted on the Qatar livery.

Airbus has internally informed that the MSN4 prototype will be painted in the forward fuselage with Qatar Airways livery. It is not the first time with a launch customer logo in a prototype but some people inside Airbus does not agree with that.

In a letter to the local newspaper "La Depeche", an Airbus employee denounces «the stranglehold of the Qatar» and «the power of money» of this airline. And he has sent the Airbus internal & confidential memo –dated on 2/October- to the newspaper.

Airbus has confirmed that this kind of sponsorship is quite standard with launch customers; "30 years ago, in 1982, Airbus painted an A310 with the colors of the two launch customers Lufthansa and Swiss. This is a win-win agreement.”

With the A380 flight tests, the logo of Emirates was painted on the belly fairing of the superjumbo in one prototype. Dubai based airline ordered 90 aircraft of A380.


The MSN4 will be painted early 2014 in Toulouse and will be used "to make the promotion of the new aircraft before its first delivery expected in the second part of next year".

Here is one proposal from JKKW posted in doubledecker forum.

 Based on the article “A350 : la peinture qui fait jaser” published in La Depeche

Airbus factory in Broughton, where the A350 wings are assembled, has an order book of equivalent to around 7 years’ production.

Airbus in Broughton is responsible for assembling wings for the entire family of Airbus commercial aircraft which includes the A320 Family, A330 Family, A380 and the A350 XWB.

With 6,300 employees across its 700 acre site, you could be forgiven for expecting Airbus in Broughton to be an impersonal place to work.

One aspect that really comes across when visiting the site though is the sense of family felt by workers here.

Walking around the plant there is a huge sense of pride, enthusiasm and teamwork emitting from the staff, all of whom are managed by Paul McKinlay, head of Airbus in Broughton. He has been in his current role at the site, which is situated in a Flintshire village near Chester, for 3 years this month but has been working at the factory for 23 years.

Speaking of developments at Airbus in Broughton over that time, he said: “It’s a tremendous success story. “We’ve invested £1.8bn here over the last 10 years on the back of tremendous product performance and great success in the market place. Recent expansions amount to £42m over the last 18 months and include a new north entry to the site, an extension to the Long Range Equipping building ahead of a production ramp-up for the A350 and a new station for the aircraft part carrier Beluga plane to allow its cargo doors to be opened in strong winds.

McKinlay began his career at Airbus in Broughton working at the factory during his summer holidays whilst studying for a chemistry degree from the then UMIST (the University of Manchester Institute of Science of Technology).

Asked about how he goes about managing such a large number of employees, the 44-year-old said: “To some degree it’s simple, treat others like you like to be treated yourself. I spend a lot of time on communication and also think it’s very important to recognise the importance of the site to the community, the economy and the UK.”

The father-of-two, who also has a stepson working at the factory, sees openness as key to his management philosophy.

He said: “I don’t have an office, I sit in an open plan area so I’m more approachable. “I spend quite a lot of time on the shop floor and have regular question and answer forums for the employees. Every day there’s a different challenge.”

“One of my favorite moments was when the employees saw the A350 take off for the first time. “I’ve been here 23 years and it was only the second time I’d seen a first flight. “We had a big screen and a party for the staff.”
Speaking about the challenge of attracting young people to pursue manufacturing as a profession, McKinlay said: “I think the culture is changing but it’s an ongoing problem throughout manufacturing in the UK.

“It’s about encouraging both males and females that manufacturing apprenticeships are as good if not better than going to university and that it’s a viable alternative.“It’s not a gender but a cultural issue in the UK.

“It takes time for perceptions to change but we’re having success, people are starting to realize we’re hi-tech and it’s not the traditional image of a dirty manufacturing industry.”
Currently staff at Airbus in Broughton are working on an order book of 5,190 aircraft, equivalent to around 7 years’ production.




Based on the article “Big Interview: Paul McKinlay, head of the Airbus factory in Broughton” published in Liverpool daily post.

ANA´s battle for 30 Boeing 777 aircraft replacement; A350-1000 against the 777X. It has become a "can't lose at any cost" deal for Boeing.

Attention in Japan has now turned to Boeing's battle with Airbus to supply JAL's rival ANA Holdings .

ANA's boss, Shinichiro Ito, said last month that his airline would consider possible delivery delay risks when choosing replacements for its older long-haul 777 jets.

With the world's biggest fleet of Dreamliners and being the first airline to fly the innovative carbon composite plane, ANA has been most affected by delays. The aircraft's grounding this year has resulted in millions of dollars of losses.

Boeing is widely seen as the favorite in that tussle, although some analysts think ANA will buy Airbus wide-body planes to hedge against delay and avoid getting left with older fleets while competitors fly new jets that consume less fuel.

Like JAL, ANA is looking to buy around 25-30 jets to retire its aging long-haul 777s and is considering the A350-1000 and the 777X as replacements.

A win for Boeing would offer a keen incentive for the U.S. company to stay deeply rooted in Japan, and industry sources expect a lobbying backlash as pressure from the aerospace industry's political backers comes to bear.

And at ANA, political pressure may bear more fruit. In a reversal of roles, ANA now enjoys a closer relationship with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a position once enjoyed by flag carrier JAL before its bankruptcy and bailout in 2010.

ANA this month won double the number of new landing slots at Tokyo's Haneda airport, prompting a rare public complaint by JAL that it had been unfairly treated.

After the JAL setback, ANA is fast becoming a "can't lose at any cost" deal for Boeing, whose executives are under pressure to "do everything they can" to win the deal, said an industry source close to the U.S. planemaker.

The United States' close diplomatic ties with Japan, a key U.S. ally in East Asia, could help Boeing's cause, according to industry sources.

But some analysts think ANA will buy Airbus wide-body planes to hedge against delay and avoid getting left with older fleets while competitors fly new jets that consume less fuel. The Airbus A350 is due to enter service in 2015, while Boeing's competing 777X is not expected before 2020.

"For ANA, relying on Boeing for 777-Xs means running the risk that JAL, their direct competitor, will get their A350s as 777 replacements years before ANA does," wrote Richard Aboulafia, analyst at Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

"Therefore, an ANA A350 order is likely." But despite last week's victory, Airbus is widely seen as the underdog in the tussle for ANA's business, industry experts say.

The airline has said that it could make a decision in early 2014, and analysts expect it to stick to that schedule.

"The good thing in Japan is that when they commit to a time, they tend to stick to that," said a second industry source, who added that it was going to be a "very busy end of the year and a very busy start to the new year" for both companies.

ANA has received several briefings on both the A350 and the 777X in recent months, and an airline spokesman said that information was still being gathered.

The Japanese airlines are proving to be tough customers for both companies, sources said, asking a lot of questions about the performance of both aircraft.




Based on the article “Airbus versus Boeing Japan battle switches to ANA” published in Reuters

Effects of the JAL order. Japanese suppliers, 777X workshare, china & south korea, ANA order

Workshare for 777X which Japan wants is between the 35% of the 787 and the 21% of the 777. But the 777X will be less Japanese.

For 50 years Boeing has awarded bigger and bigger shares of its supply contracts to Japanese firms, but that could change after Japan Airlines' shock defection to Airbus and as Boeing seeks to win orders in China.

Boeing's 787 is 35% made in Japan - as big a share as it builds in-house - but Japanese aviation insiders fear the Dreamliner could be the high water mark of the industry's partnership with the U.S. company.

The close co-operation has not only benefitted Japan's industrial giants Mitsubishi Heavy Industries , Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries - it has also enabled Boeing to dominate one of the world's biggest aviation markets with a share of more than 80%.

That status quo crumbled last week, when JAL signed a deal to buy 31 Airbus A350s, its first purchase of European jets.

"Negotiations for the 777X work share are ongoing, and that may be influenced by the JAL decision," a government official who helps oversee Japan's aerospace industry told Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Tokyo, he added, was looking to win a work share for Japanese suppliers greater than the 21% that Mitsubishi Heavy, Kawasaki Heavy and others build of the current 777.

The fear in Japan is that Boeing, which says the business it gives Japan adds up to 22,000 jobs accounting for around 40% of nation's aerospace workforce, may be tempted to shift more production to China, South Korea or elsewhere.

"If I was Boeing, I would hold their feet to the fire," said Lance Gatling, from aerospace consultancy Nexial Research. "International competition for what they build can only increase."

China and South Korea could be the competitors.

JAL's defection to Airbus stacks on top of other reasons why the Japanese may find it harder to win bigger chunks of business from their American partner.

Boeing, having faced criticism it overextended itself on the delayed 787 with an ambitious global supply chain, has said it will take a more conventional approach to the 777X, a re-engine more fuel efficient upgrade of its long-range, wide-body 777.


That, industry watchers say, could mean it builds the aircraft wings at home, after allowing the Dreamliner wings to be made overseas - in Japan - for the first time.

A longer-term worry for the Japanese is that their country, once Asia's biggest aircraft market, is no longer the goldmine that first drew Boeing to seek panel suppliers for its 747 there.

Both Boeing and Airbus are now more focused on vying for business in burgeoning China. The entry price often imposed by the Chinese government is a share of the build.

Boeing, in its most recent 20-year market forecast that runs through 2032, predicts China will buy 6,000 new planes while the market in Northeast Asia, which includes Japan, North and South Korea and Taiwan, will be 1,360 aircraft.

"If the Japanese could put the arm on Boeing the Chinese have got the ability to put the arm on Boeing," said Nexial Research's Gatling. "The Chinese have cheap labor and a huge market."

He added that the Japanese were also looking over their shoulders at upcoming South Korean firms such as Korean Aerospace Industries, which Boeing in 2011 named supplier of the year.

One lure that could keep Boeing heavily involved in Japan is government financial support for R&D that could end up in its jets.

According to the European Union, which is locked in an aircraft subsidy dispute with the United States, Boeing benefits from support from the Japanese government for development of the 787, including financing of up to 70% of development costs incurred by Japanese suppliers.

"Obviously JAL's decision is a setback, but Boeing has been investing in Japan for decades and is not going to suddenly say from now on we don't like you," said Adam Pilarski, senior VP at aviation consultancy Avitas, on the sidelines of an aviation finance conference in Barcelona.


And the next battle is ANA …




Based on the article “Japan worries about Boeing retreat in wake of JAL defection” published in Reuters

Reasons of the JAL order. 787 delays, problems on the EIS and reliability issues. And 777X not-yet-launched.

Order by JAL for 31 A350 aircraft represents a fissure in the interlocking arrangement that previously brought the Japanese government, major airlines and the Japanese heavy-industrial companies all together in supporting Boeing.

While JAL will likely stick with Boeing 787s for its midsize twin-aisle fleet, its needs for bigger aircraft that have 300-plus seats may now be covered by Airbus.

The JAL defection follows a big win for Boeing last month when German flag carrier Lufthansa, the only major global carrier that had never ordered 777 passenger planes, committed to buy 34 Boeing 777-9Xs.

However, in that case, it was a split order. Lufthansa also ordered 25 Airbus A350-900s at the same time. In JAL’s case, it was winner take all.

Aboulafia said he still strongly believes Boeing’s offerings in the large widebody category — the 787 and 777X families — are clearly superior to Airbus’ single family of A350s .

He sees the JAL order as a terrible missed opportunity, caused by Boeing leadership’s stop-and-go approach to launching the 777X, which has been talked about for a couple of years and is now expected to formally launch next month.

“787 and 777X should have won Boeing unquestioned dominance of all the key customers,” Aboulafia said. “The problem is the management of Boeing. They have been incredibly passive about getting this program launched.”

Airbus previously won two key A350 orders from Cathay Pacific and IAG, parent company of British Airways and Iberia. Both were significant losses for Boeing.

“How many times do you hit the snooze button on the alarm?” Aboulafia said of Boeing’s management.

Shortly after the 787s were grounded due to problems with overheating batteries, the airline’s reliance on Boeing as a sole supplier was decried as “abnormal” by its former chairman, Kazuo Inamori.

Inamori is a revered business leader who had founded Japanese electronics company Kyocera and was brought in by the Japanese government to rescue JAL from bankruptcy, which he accomplished 18 months ago.

“In a normal market there is tremendous risk from relying on one vendor,” Inamori said in a February interview with CNBC. He added that to encourage competitive pricing and quality, “a dual vendor system is a must.”

Inamori, who transformed the airline’s thinking about costs and turned it around financially in just 3 years, retired at the age of 81 in March.

The airline’s first-ever Airbus order appears to be part of his legacy.

Another part of the reason for the defection may be JAL’s frustration with the 787 Dreamliner’s in-service problems.

JAL operated the Dreamliner that caught fire on the ground in Boston in early January, prompting the worldwide grounding of the fleet.

The airline resumed 787 flights in June, but since then has cataloged multiple reliability issues.
Boeing acknowledged it had paid a penalty for the mechanically troubled debut of its 787 Dreamliner. Delays to the 787 and its subsequent grounding after batteries overheated have, however, tarnished Boeing's image and cast doubt on its ability to deliver aircraft on time, industry experts said.

JAL maintains a tally of technical incidents with the 787. Since June, five JAL Dreamliners turned back while in the air, nine were forced to return to the gate before takeoff due to technical issues, and in two cases other aircraft had to be substituted at the last minute.
Technical problems on six other Dreamliners resulted in delays of more than two hours.

Analyst Hamilton said that litany of reliability issues may have weighed more heavily against Boeing in JAL’s boardroom than the grounding due to the batteries.

It’s possible that JAL executives decided, having suffered through these early Dreamliner glitches, that next time it didn’t want to be a launch customer for a new jet.

In February, Inamori said JAL should have been more wary of all the new technology on the jet.

“We should have been much, much more careful,” Inamori told CNBC. “It is unacceptable to jump at every new technological breakthrough.”

The A350-900 is due to enter service in 2015, and JAL won’t get its first one until 2019, providing time to iron out any wrinkles in the systems.

The 777X is due to enter service as a new airplane in 2019 or 2020.








Based on the article “Boeing’s lost JAL order to Airbus to have ripple effect” published in The Seattle Times.

Comments on the JAL order. Between the huge win of Airbus and the heartbreak for Boeing.

“This is seriously bad for Boeing. They need to do a little soul searching,” said Richard Aboulafia, airline analyst with Teal Group. “The 787 problems inevitably led to doubts about execution, resources and time. It’s the price to be paid for passivity, by not launching the 777X one year ago,” said Aboulafia.

"This is a huge win for Airbus and a big loss for Boeing," said aerospace analyst Scott Hamilton, managing director of Seattle-based Leeham Co.

"Airbus has been trying to break the wide-body monopoly of Boeing for decades and likewise Boeing has been wanting to keep Airbus out of JAL and ANA."

"It's a heartbreak," Kostya Zolotusky, managing director of Boeing Capital Corp. "We recognise that we made it very challenging for them in introducing 787 and will work to correct that," he said.

“Airbus won the JAL order on its own merits, but only after the airline's confidence in Boeing took such a knock that they had to look objectively at all options” is stated on the Airliners forum.

“I still believe that Japan Airlines ordered the A350 because it was the better plane and, more importantly, because Airbus spent years in a carefully-orchestrated mission to convince Japan Airlines management that it was the better plane. Even if the 787 had executed far better than it did in both development and deployment, I believe Airbus' concerted effort would have won them the deal” summarized another comment on Airliners.

"With this order, it gives us more momentum to look for potential joint R&D efforts for the future generation of aircraft," Fabrice Bregier Airbus CEO told a news conference in Tokyo with JAL President Yoshiharu Ueki.

Ambassadors from Britain, Germany and France and the European Union representative in Japan attended the briefing, each with national flags displayed before of them.


Based on the article “Airbus clinches landmark jet order with Japan Airlines” published in Reuters

New livery for the MSN2, the first flight prototype with cabin interior equipped

With the first pictures of the MSN2, we can confirm that a new livery for this aircraft –and very probably for the MSN5- is going to be shown in coming weeks. The MSN2 is the 3rd prototype that will join the certification flight-program on the first weeks of 2014 and it is the first prototype with cabin interior equipped.

MSN2 Vertical Tail "protected"

In the pictures currently available, the “A350” words are painted in white letters in the Vertical Tail and will be highlighted on a black background. The vertical tail plane for MSN2 has been “protected” after been painted and until the complete aircraft goes to the paint shop, we will not be able to watch the new livery. The wing and the horizontal tail will remain in grey-white color as for the other prototypes and the new black painting scheme will probably be applied to the half of the fuselage, being the rear part of the fuselage in black and more & more white until arriving to the nose fuselage that will be in the “standard” white.

MSN1 Vertical Tail when it was painted

The black painting would simulate carbon fiber structure as shown in the picture above.

Winglets, one of the identity brand of the aircraft will probably be painted in this “carbon-fiber” black. And the nose fuselage will be identical than the other prototypes.


The 3 modules of the crew rest compartment have already been installed in the rear part of the fuselage in the MSN2. And the cabin activity will increase in coming weeks in the station 20.

The MSN5, the second cabin equipped aircraft will probably be painted with the same livery than the MSN2. These two aircraft will be used for different tests and also they will participate in the A350 road-show all around the world in different air shows.