Emirates will decide the major-order in 2015; Boeing 787 versus A350 XWB.

While Emirates and Qatar placed launch orders for the Boeing 777X at the 2013 Dubai Air Show, another major sales campaign likely will be decided in 2015, in time for the next air show in Dubai starting on 8/Nov/2015.

Source: Airbus

Emirates is looking at another large order for the Airbus A350 or the Boeing 787 for medium- to long-haul routes, including to destinations in Asia, Europe and Africa.

Source: Manuel Belleli

The campaign comes after Emirates canceled an earlier order for 70 A350s in 2014, as it was no longer happy with the type’s revised performance parameters.

Based on the article "Harvesting Brands" published in Aviation Week.

Qatar Airways´ first A350 XWB officially presented in Doha.

The Deputy Prime Minister Al Mahmoud has inaugurated today the Qatar Airways A350 XWB.

Source: QNA

In the ceremony organized in Doha, Qatar Airways CEO Al Baker has shown to the  Deputy Prime Minister and a group of ministers & ambassadors the cabin of the MSN6 aircraft. 

Source: Qatar Airways

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said : "We are ready to commence operations with the A350 XWB and are delighted to introduce another level of service with our expanded fleet.”

Source: Qatar Airways

"The engineering design of the A350 XWB is modern, technologically refined and spacious, and we are proud to welcome yet another fine aeroplane into the Qatar Airways' fleet" said Al Baker.

Source: Manuel Belleli

At the press conference, Qatar Airways CEO said that Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Qatar had created “a magnificent masterpiece.”

The first aircraft will enter revenue service in mid-January with a flight from Doha’s new Hamad International Airport to Frankfurt.

Based on the article “Deputy Premier Officially Inaugurates Qatar airways A350 XWB Aircraft” published in Qatar News Agency.

Qatar Airways A350 cabin details.

Qatar Airways has configured its new Airbus A350-900 with a 283-seat, 2-class interior featuring a business cabin similar to that on its Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 fleets.

The business cabin incorporates 36 seats in a 4-abreast (1-2-1) configuration, each featuring 80in (76cm) lie-flat beds and 17in high definition in-flight entertainment screens.

The economy cabin includes 247 18in-wide seats in a 9-abreast (3-3-3) configuration at up to 32in pitch. Each seat has 10.6in screens.

At 283 seats, the A350-900’s seat count gives its slightly higher capacity than the airline’s 777-200LRs (259 seats) and 787s (254 seats).

Source: Qatar Airways

Qatar’s A330-300s are operated in various layouts seating 259 passengers or 305 passengers, depending on the size of the business cabin. Their economy cabins are 8-abreast, in a 2-4-2 layout.

Based on the article “Qatar Airways reveals A350 cabin” published in FlightGlobal.

A350 XWB achievements and Path Forward.

Presented by Didier Evrad, Head of A350 XWB Program, these are some of the slides for a general overview of the A350 XWB Program shown in the Airbus-Group Global Investor Forum held on 10-11/Dec/2014 in London.

A350-900 Certified & Ready for Entry Into Service.

Lessons Learnt to meet delivery commitments.

Preparing for future by boosting competitiveness.

Complete presentation available here.

Other presentations of the Global Investor Forum are available here.

The inside story to substitute the A350 with A350 XWB. The chess game between Airbus and Boeing. 4/4

In Toulouse, it was proving hard to make the business cases stick, but one proposal labelled "1d" looked promising.

It dived deep into a planemaker's armoury of wings, cockpit, cabin, engines and the all-important wider fuselage.

It would cost about 11 billion euros to build rather than the 4 billion budgeted for the original A350, while setting Airbus up for 20 years with projected sales of 2.000 planes instead of 800. But it was still a step behind Boeing's 787: the tube would be in metal rather than carbon.

Meanwhile, an internal crisis cast a new shadow over the proposals.

Delays to the A380 hit share prices in June/2006 and forced Humbert to resign. The Farnborough Airshow was looming and a divided board was not ready to commit to a new project.

"No decision was taken to discontinue the original A350," Andries said. "Most senior executives at the time were against the Extra-Wide Body. Even in the summer of 2006 the decision was not secure."

Airbus nonetheless took the risk of presenting the concept at the July/2006 show. Even as it called the plane a "step ahead of the 787" it made little reference to the metal shell.

Humbert's replacement, aerospace outsider Christian Streiff, took top Airbus managers to a converted French abbey to reflect.

Over dinner, according to a person familiar with the event, he asked them to raise their hands if they thought Airbus should build the very plane they had publicised weeks earlier. Only a handful did, including sales chief John Leahy and Andries.

Nevertheless, the engineers pressed on. Soon, they came up with a cost-effective way to make an all-carbon body assembled from panels, which they felt would be cheaper to build than the single giant piece in the Boeing 787.

In December/2006, the reversal was complete: the board approved the new, all-carbon A350XWB.

The future of the chess game: 777-X versus A350-1100.

Meanwhile, the battle of the air goes on. Whether Airbus can meet Humbert's challenge of 50% wide-body market share depends partly on the success of Boeing's latest move - a larger and upgraded 777, Udvar-Hazy said.

The answer may lie in a drawer in Toulouse. Industry sources say Humbert's planners drew up, but discarded, a variant for a larger version of its new jet called A350-1100. That could provide a clue to Airbus's options next decade.

Based on the article “Flying back on course: the inside story of the new Airbus A350 jet” published in Reuters.

The inside story to substitute the A350 with A350 XWB. The chess game between Airbus and Boeing. 3/4

When Boeing launched the medium-sized 787 to compete with the A330, Airbus responded defensively. It's answer, the A350, was basically an A330 with carbon wings and new engines, rather than a new plane.

"People were cringing at the time, saying it was inelegant or 'how can you put a patch on a broken leg'," said Henri Courpron, chairman of Plane View Partners and former head of Airbus North America.

Soon, Airbus customers in Boeing's backyard, like Northwest Airlines and Air Canada, were writing cheques for 787s. Airbus found itself straining to compete with both flagship Boeings.

In December/2005, pressure reached boiling point with two big Boeing wins. Qantas chose the 787; Cathay Pacific picked the 777.

An internal post-mortem on Qantas laid out the problem: the original A350 was "reactionary" and Airbus had lost credibility.

Airbus Chief Executive Gustav Humbert called in his 43-year-old strategy chief Olivier Andries and gave him a delicate task.

"I asked him to take the best guys and set up a long-range policy team," said Humbert, who is now retired.

Humbert urged him to consider whether Airbus could capture 50% of the big-jet market, up from 35-40%, by straddling the largest 787 and smallest 777: around 300 seats.

"I was encouraged to think outside the box ....about the whole long-range strategy," said Andries, now chief executive of engine firm Turbomeca. He declined to discuss details.

Monitored by a team of retired "Wise Men," the group of 10 drew up confidential scenarios from makeovers to bold new jets.

In March/2006, Udvar-Hazy, who now runs Air Lease, piled on pressure by urging Airbus to drop its cautious A350.

"We looked at the economics and concluded it was not a contender in a meaningful way. So I felt it would get a silver medal and didn't deserve to get built," said Udvar-Hazy.

Based on the article “Flying back on course: the inside story of the new Airbus A350 jet” published in Reuters.

The inside story to substitute the A350 with A350 XWB. The chess game between Airbus and Boeing. 2/4

The fluctuating, decade-long journey from half-hearted tinkering to an all-new family of jets highlights a chess game still being played out as Airbus and Boeing battle each other in the wide-body market, valued at $1.9 trillion over 20 years.

In coming days the A350 will start competing with the 787 in the skies, having garnered 778 orders against 1.055 for rival Boeing 787.

To build the carbon-plastic jets, planemakers have tested themselves to the limit. But they have also carefully avoided a head-on collision, searching for pockets of empty space in the twinjet market by unveiling variants that rarely have precisely the same capacity as their competitor's.

Some analysts say that may help support their profit margins, though as the A350's story demonstrates, competition for sales is intense.

"I think they are now pretty well matched," said Steven Udvar-Hazy, who as CEO of lessor ILFC at the time was the world's biggest buyer of commercial jets and would prove to be an important influence on the A350s development.

A decade ago, air travel was changing. Planes with 2 engines were able to fly further, and proving more efficient than big jets with 4 engines.

Boeing's twin-engine 777 was beating Airbus's four-engine A340 in the market for big planes, and Airbus's huge four-engine A380, the biggest airliner ever, had yet to enter service.

Airbus was strong in the market for small wide-body jets, doing well with its twin-engine A330. But fast-growing airlines like Qatar and Emirates were demanding more comfortable cabins with space to install new lie-flat beds.

That might have suggested a new fuselage, a decision planemakers rarely take more than once every couple of decades.

But Airbus was behind in new materials technology, focused on finishing the A380, and hoarding resources to improve its most profitable cash cow, the A320 small jet, in case Boeing refreshed its 737 model, people familiar with the matter said.

Based on the article “Flying back on course: the inside story of the new Airbus A350 jet” published in Reuters.