Airbus A350 development aircraft MSN5 has completed the Australasian legs of its round-the-world route proving flight, departing Auckland for Santiage on Wednesday evening.
The aircraft, registered F-WWYB, flew into Auckland from Sydney on Tuesday evening, landing at 1839 after a two hour 18 minute trans-Tasman crossing. The aircraft was then shown to media and industry personnel on Wednesday, before it departed just before 5pm for the nine hour flight to Santiago, Chile.
“The aircraft is operated by Airbus flightcrews and during this route proving exercise a representative airline schedule operation has to be demonstrated such as normal airline turnarounds using airport handling services,” Airbus explained in a statement.
MSN5 is due to return to Australia on Friday when it operates its last route proving flight, arriving in Perth from Doha, Qatar on August 9.
