Also, BMW To Design A350 Interior

It hasn't come down to a recount -- yet -- but representatives from Airbus Industrie report a surge of aircraft orders in December have brought it much closer to matching Boeing's record 1,002 net orders for 2005.

"December is always a busy month in our industry," said Airbus spokesman Rainer Ohler last week to the Associated Press. "In terms of aircraft order intake, Airbus will be in a similar ballpark to its competitor."

That competitor, of course, is Boeing, who happily reported last week it secured over 1,000 net orders in 2005. That total is the most orders in the company's history -- trumping the previous record of 877 set in 1988.

Perhaps more importantly, however, was the unspoken assumption the total had easily trumped Airbus for the sales title, for the first time since 2001. But evidently, no one told Airbus.

And while industry analysts say it's unlikely Airbus will surpass Boeing's overall total... the final tally may be much closer than previously thought, as Airbus prepares to make its final numbers available shortly.

An A350 With iDrive?

One of the reasons Boeing enjoyed such strong sales in 2005 was the popularity of its upcoming 787 Dreamliner, with 291 firm orders booked for the new medium-range airliner so far, according to a Boeing spokesperson. Airbus's competitor, the A350, had only gathered 49 so far through the end of November.

The European consortium, however, is pulling out all the stops in its quest to better the Dreamliner... and is enlisting German automaker BMW to help. No, that doesn't mean the A350 will be able to scream around corners on its landing gear... but if A350 passengers feel like they're in one of the automaker's upscale vehicles, that'd be okay with Airbus.

Under an agreement announced Friday, BMW will aid in the design of the A350 cabin to provide passengers with greater comfort -- something the Dreamliner has touted, with larger windows and wider seats than Airbus had previously announced.

This isn't the first aviation job for the Bavarian automaker. As was previously reported by Aero-News, BMW DesignworksUSA has also been enlisted by Embraer to design the interior accommodations of that manufacturer's upcoming Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 light jets.

No word yet if A350 passengers will have to deal with iDrive -- the single-point user interface system found in BMW's upscale automobiles, that has met with broad criticism from drivers for being shockingly unintuitive -- to choose their IFE selection, call the flight attendant, or adjust overhead airflow.

FMI: www.airbus.com, www.designworksusa.com