Last Feb/2013, Airbus announced that they were switching back to nickel-cadmium batteries for the A350 XWB as a risk-reduction strategy, but insisted the change will not affect EIS-entry into service dates.
Initial flight tests are being performed with lithium-ion batteries, because it was already too late in February to implement the change for the early part of the flight test program. However, the A350 will later be certified with Nickel-Cadmium batteries.
MSN1,MSN3, MSN2 and MSN4 flight-test aircraft are being equipped with lithium-ion batteries but the last flight-prototype, MSN5 will be equipped with nickel-cadmium batteries, used to complete the certification program needed for series aircraft, the first of which is due to be delivered to Qatar in the second half of 2014.
It was planned to equip with nickel-cadmium batteries the first 3 batches until MSN20 but it could be that the Ni-Cad batteries will be installed from MSN6, based on the news in La Tribune.
The series aircraft where the Ni-Cad batteries manufactured by Saft are installed will require specific electrical architecture changes.
Reverting to less volatile Nickel-Cadmium would mean sacrificing improvements in weight in the lighter Lithium-Ion batteries, equivalent to one adult male passenger out of between 270 and 350 passengers and cargo on board.
“The penalty in weight compared with the risks associated with Li-Ion is minimal,” said Nick Cunningham, an aerospace analyst at Agency Partners in London.
Airbus – like Boeing – is using lithium-ion batteries because they are smaller and lighter than equivalent devices based on nickel cadmium. Bombardier is using Nickel-Cadmium batteries for the Cseries.
“We confirm we are opting for nickel cadmium for the A350 main batteries to protect the programme schedule. This decision is about protecting the integrity of our program schedule… it’s not about any safety concerns about Li-ion batteries, we continue in parallel to mature for the A350. With so much uncertainty raised by the Boeing 787 investigation, we are being prudent in order protect our programme schedule. This is business as usual.”
Airbus said the concerns did not necessarily center around the technology as such, but were caused mainly by the regulatory uncertainty following the 2 Boeing 787 incidents. Airbus was worried about late additional compliance criteria that could have been introduced by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The company plans to mature the technology further nonetheless.
“We didn’t seek initial certification for the A350 with lithium because we didn’t want to take any risk of delay,” Evrard said in Toulouse. “But we think our lithium power design is sufficiently different” from its rival’s system, he said.
Based on the article “Premier vol sans problème pour le deuxième A350 d'essai d'Airbus” published in La Tribune
Airbus delivered an A350XWB program update last week in Toulouse. Clearly the company is feeling ever more confident in the program.
Airbus provided interesting data on the backlogs through October 8th.
Concerning the single aisles, notice how the market has swung from the current generation of single aisles to the new generation. Clearly Airbus has benefited from the first mover advantage.
Regarding the widebody category, Boeing benefited even more; the 787 is thrashing the A330 in backlog. The A350 has done remarkably well against the 777, but expect these numbers to change after the upcoming Dubai show, where the 777x is expected to pick up at least 150 orders.
Airbus shows how they see their product lining up against Boeing’s. The A330 is compared to the 787 and the A350 to the 777. But it’s more subtle than that.
Airbus makes the case that airline interest has moved to the larger sizes – over 300-seaters are now far more attractive to airlines. The facts seem to support his because Boeing is moving up the 787 and the 777 in size. The A330-300 is now getting more interest than the A330-200. Similarly, Boeing is seeing more interest in the 787-9 than the 787-8. Airbus says the 250-seat market has seen a backlog shrink by 402 while the 300-seat market is up 662.
Airbus explains that in developing the A350, they had lots of conversations with customers. Which is what Boeing said about the 777. Airbus has also seen growing acceptance of the A350 because of customer input. As in every business, listening to the customer is the smart thing to do.
Airbus notes its A350-1000 customers believe that this aircraft can replace the 777-300ER while being 40 tonnes lighter (savings of 20t in fuel and 20t in structure) on a 6,500 mile mission with 350 passengers. But Airbus then went to explain the nuance of seat count differences even though the A350-1000 and 777-300ER are the same size. The 777-300ER has five doors to the four on the A350-1000. At a standard nine-abreast seating the A350-1000 can fit a few more seats.
As a reaction to market acceptance of the A350-1000, Airbus believes Boeing had to stretch the 777 to the -9x variant. Airbus estimates the -9x will be 35t heavier than the A350-1000. Then Airbus made a very interesting calculation – they don’t think Boeing will increase the -9x MTOW over what the -300ER has now (351t). Therefore, given the higher weight of the -9x, Airbus thinks the -9x payload will be reduced. Even if the -9x has 35 more seats (10 abreast) Airbus thinks its fuel burn will still be 15% higher than the A350-1000 on a per trip basis.
Crucially, Airbus notes the per seat fuel burn on the -9x will be the same as the A350-900, but it will only be available after 2020 whereas the A350-900 will offer this in 2014. Lufthansa believes both aircraft will be at 2.9liters/passenger/100km.
Based on the article “A350XWB Update” published in AirInsight
Russia’s Aeroflot will delay delivery of its 22 Airbus A350 XWBs to between 2018 and 2023. Deliveries were originally scheduled from between 2018 and 2020. The decision was approved at a company shareholders meeting
The carrier did not comment on the move, but industry experts say there are two possible reasons for the delay.
One is that Aeroflot has converted part of its A350-800 order into -900s. The company said it will now get 8 -800s and 14 -900s, though earlier the order was split into 18 -800s and 4 -900s.
The second possible reason is the carrier’s order for 16 Boeing 777s, which experts believe could cause overcapacity in the widebody segment of the Russian market. Deliveries started at the beginning of the year.
Aeroflot shareholders approved the change to the makeup of its order for 22 A350s. As part of the original deal signed in summer 2007, the airline planned to take 18 A350-800s and four A350-900s. Now Aeroflot wants to have more of the larger -900s, bringing their number to 14 while the -800 order is reduced from 18 to eight. According to an Aeroflot report, the deal is valued at $3.1 million, not counting custom duties.
The aircraft are expected to begin entering the airline's fleet in 2018, but the order conversion extends the delivery period to 2023. If deliveries are delayed, Airbus will grant a $25 million discount for another Aeroflot order for five Airbus A321-200s, according to the airline's report. Leasing agent GTLK took the $291.5 million order on behalf of the airline, and will lease the -200s to Aeroflot for 12 years. The carrier already has two of the CFM56-5B3/3-powered A321s in operation; the others are expected to be delivered by the end of the year.
Aeroflot fleet includes 22 Airbus A330s, 23 A321s, 51 A320s and 15 A319s; four Boeing 777s, five 767s and one 737; six Ilyushin Il-96s; and 10 Sukhoi Superjet 100s.
Based on the article “Aeroflot plans fleet growth but delays A350 until 2018” published in Flight Global
Airbus COO Günter Butschek said in an interview at Tagesspiegel newspaper that Germany should pay the remaining 600 million euros of a disputed development loan for Airbus's A350 XWB, now Airbus has allocated work to German employees.
The German government had demanded that Airbus guarantee a certain amount of the work on the A350 plane would be done in Germany as a condition for paying out the remaining part of the loan.
Chief Operating Officer Günter Butschek said in the interview at Tagesspiegel that Airbus had now assigned 4.000 of the A350 jobs to Germany, 250% more than targeted, while the German proportion of research&development is far beyond the 1/3 promised.
"We have therefore far exceeded our promises and believe there is now no reason to withhold the remaining payment," Herr Butschek said. "The ball is now in the government's court".
Any payout will have to wait for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives to conclude coalition talks after her party won September's federal election but failed to gain enough votes for a majority.
"The conditions for the payment of the loan to Airbus can only be determined by the future government," a spokeswoman for the federal ministry of economics said. "The ministry does not want to bind the future government to any decisions made on this matter at the present time."
Based on the article “Airbus exec says time for Germany to pay A350 loan in full” published in Reuters
SriLankan Airlines and International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) signed (07-Oct-2013) a 12-year lease agreement for three A350-900 aircraft. The aircraft will support the airline's long-haul fleet renewal.
The A350-900s are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-84 and are part of an operating lease agreement, which has an anticipated delivery timeline between Jul-2016 and Sep-2016.
ILFC currently has two A330-200s and one A340-300 on lease with SriLankan. SriLankan CEO Kapila Chandrasena said, "This would be the first time the A350 family aircraft will enter our fleet, and it marks a significant step towards the growth of the airline. SriLankan has placed direct orders for 4 additional A350-900 aircraft with Airbus, and we believe that this new generation, fuel-efficient aircraft will play a leading role in the airline's long-haul operations in time to come. We are indeed pleased that ILFC will be providing us with the first 3 aircraft, and look forward to building on the strong ties we have established with ILFC."
Based on the article “ILFC and SriLankan Airlines sign 12-year lease agreement for three A350-900s” published in CAPA
EADS CEO Tom Enders spoke at Australia’s National Aviation Press Club: “We are on track to deliver the first aircraft at the end of 2014. It’s going to be a great aircraft.” He went on to say “The 350 is a bit behind the 787 in terms of schedule,” and noted that 750 A350s have been sold. “I was quite pleased that we were trailing the 787 because by taking our time we could learn some of the lessons from that project,” he said.
Airbus, like all OEMs, has had its share of program delays. But the A350 seems to be doing well in its testing. While the program ran into some delay earlier, Airbus appears to have worked through the big issues and testing is going well. It is being an impressive management of the A350 program.
Whereas Boeing got its 787 program started earlier, much of that program’s timing advantage was lost due to delays and technical hitches. Then came 747-8 program glitches, and Boeing was caught off guard with the success of the neo. These events in turn meant the 777X program slowed down as engineers were moved to fixing 787 and 747-8 issues. Boeing has a lot on its plate, when one considers it is also developing the MAX.
Which, of course, meant Airbus benefited. Airbus was at the back end of painful lessons from the A400M and A380. Airbus therefore was able to deploy lessons from its own program upsets to ensure the A350 went much more smoothly.
Boeing’s 777X program is now in catch up mode, it will be 2019 or 2020 before the first airplane is delivered. That will be up to six years after the A350.
Based in the article “Impressive A350 progress” published in AirInsight
The strongest prospect for an A350 order in Australia would be from Virgin Australia, which has been officially open to considering an order for the Airbus or from Boeing’s competing 787 range even before Boeing began to make serious references to going ahead in the near future with its 777-X program, which is widely tipped to be officially launched next month.
The issue that strikes the casual observer of Virgin Australia as ‘obvious’ is that of finance for any new fleet decisions.
However, depending on how the various major partners in Virgin Australia Holdings sort out their potentially overlapping ambitions for the carrier, a solution might be for such a partner to ‘invest’ some of its Airbus or Boeing orders in the growth of Virgin Australia.
On the other hand, Qantas is considering the Airbus A350 and Boeing 777X as potential replacements for its ageing fleet of Boeing 747 jumbo jets.
In a presentation held in Seattle some weeks ago, ahead of today's delivery flight of Jetstar's first Boeing 787, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce flagged what he called "the next big decisions" on the airline's fleet.
Qantas would seem to be a less likely prospect for the A350 series given its dual commitments to a ‘simplified’ fleet with fewer types, and its access to 787 Dreamliner options, between 2017 and 2020.
It seems that you could get reasonable odds on Airbus ramping up production rates on the A350 in the near future, and that would change the outlook for sales in Australia in a very positive way.
Based on the article “Qantas mulls Airbus A350, Boeing 777X to replace Boeing 747s” published in Australian Business Traveller.
