Carrier’s A350 Orders Reach Forty Jets

Turkish national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines has announced an order for ten additional A350-900 aircraft, thereby increasing the carrier’s total A350 family orders to forty jets. The agreement supplements the airline’s August 2023 order for four A350-900s. Currently, Turkish Airlines’s fleet comprises 14 A350-900 wide-body aircraft.

Airbus chief commercial officer and head of Airbus International Christian Scherer stated: “We are delighted that Turkish Airlines has decided to further enlarge its fleet with the purchase of ten more A350-900 aircraft. With greater range capability, passenger capacity, and comfort, the A350 is the perfect platform to connect Istanbul to the world. This repeat order demonstrates the confidence for our unique new generation aircraft that offers airlines unbeatable economics and efficiency. We are proud to keep expanding our long-lasting partnership with Turkish Airlines and Turkey’s aviation sector overall.”   

The Airbus A350 is a clean-sheet, long-range, wide-body, twin-engine airliner developed and produced by the consortium in response to Boeing’s successful 787 Dreamliner.  

The A350 is the first Airbus aircraft largely made of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers. The model’s nine-abreast economy cross-section improves upon the A330/340’s eight-abreast configuration. The A350-900—the type’s first model—accommodates three-hundred to 350 passengers, has a 617,300-pound maximum takeoff weight, and boasts an 8,100-nautical-mile range. Moreover, the A350 shares a common pilot type-rating with its A330 predecessor. The machine is powered by a pair of 84,200-lbf. Rolls-Royce Trent XWB high-bypass turbofan engines which motivate it to a maximum cruise speed of 0.89 Mach (513-knots) and a service-ceiling of FL430. Normal cruise speed is to the order of 0.85 Mach (488-knots).

The A350 prototype first flew on 14 June 2013 from Toulouse, France. Type certification was granted by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in September 2014; Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) type certification was granted two months later. The A350 entered service with launch-customer Qatar Airways on 24 February 2018.

To date, global air-carriers have booked over one-thousand A350 orders.

FMI: www.airbus.com