Airbus has celebrated the delivery of the 100th A350 XWB, with the milestone aircraft, an A350-900 for Taiwan’s China Airlines, handed over in a ceremony at Toulouse on Wednesday.
The first customer A350 delivery was to Qatar Airways in December 2014, and despite early delays in ramping up production and delivery rates largely attributed to issues with cabin equipment and seat suppliers, Airbus says the A350 program has experienced the fastest production ramp-up of any of its widebody airliners.
“The 100th A350 XWB milestone comes as we reach our fastest widebody production ramp-up, on track to meet the target of 10 A350 deliveries per month by the end of 2018,” Fabrice Bregier, Airbus COO and president commercial aircraft, said in a statement.
Airbus says its holds firm orders for 847 A350s from 45 customers, with 14 airlines having taken delivery of A350-900s to date.
The larger A350-1000 is nearing the end of its flight test campaign with certification and first customer delivery planned for the fourth quarter of this year.
No Australasian airline has yet ordered the A350, although the widebody twin is an increasingly common sight at local airports thanks to services operated by Qatar Airways (Adelaide), Singapore Airlines (Melbourne) and Cathay Pacific (Auckland, Melbourne and Brisbane).
