The Airbus A350XWB is a long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design proposed by Airbus in
2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the Airbus A330 with composite wings and
new engines. Due to inadequate market support, Airbus switched in 2006 to a
clean-sheet "XWB" (eXtra Wide Body) design, powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent XWB high bypass turbofan engines. The prototype first flew on 14
June 2013 from Toulouse,
France. Type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was obtained in September 2014, followed by certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) two months later.
The A350 is the first Airbus aircraft largely made of carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers. It has a
new fuselage designed around a
nine-abreast economy cross-section, up from the eight-abreast A330/A340. It has a common type rating with the A330. The airliner has two variants: the A350-900 typically carries
300 to 350 passengers over a 15,000-kilometre (8,100-nautical-mile; 9,
300-statute-mile) range, and has a 283-tonne (617,
300-pound) maximum takeoff weight (MTOW); the longer A350-1000 accommodates 350 to 410 passengers and has a maximum range of 16,100 km (8,700 nmi; 10,000
mi) and a 319 t (703,200
lb) MTOW.
On 15 January
2015, the first A350-900 entered service with Qatar Airways, followed by the A350-1000 on 24 February 2018 with the same launch customer. As of February
2024, Singapore Airlines is the largest operator with 63 A350-900 aircraft in its
fleet. A350 orders stood at 1239 aircraft, of which 587 had been delivered and all were in service with 40 operators. The global A350
fleet has completed more than 1,235,000 flights on more than 1,085 routes, with one hull loss being an airport-safety–related accident. It succeeds the A340 and competes against Boeing's large long-haul twinjets: the Boeing 787, the
777, and its future successor, the 777X.
