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Airbus A350 XWB completes maiden flight
Airbus A350 XWB completes first flight: Perfect touchdown
Please ping me to aviation and aerospace articles. Thank you.
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Lessee... I learned something very important: the test crew waved an Airbus flag from a hatch. I’m so happy CNN had room in the article for that bit of irrelevant trivia. Whoopee.
I also learned that the A350-800 seats 270 passengers, while the A350-900 seats 314 and the A350-1000 seats 350 passengers. Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder why they didn’t tell us how many wheels they have?
BUT... the ONE pertinent bit of information that caused me to read this article in the first place, and probably caused most people to read it, WAS TOTALLY ABSENT; namely, how many passengers can the XWB seat? That would be 440, max. Had to look it up elsewhere.
Thanks, CNN. For nothing. Next time I see a CNN article, I will start elsewhere to get answers I’d like to have, and not waste my time.
No reflection whatsoever on you, EveningStar, but I HATE the LSM, and not just for political reasons.
Did the batteries stay nice and cool? :)
Funny you posted this. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
For Airbus and Bankers, Big A340s Pose Sizable Risks
Airlines Shun the Jets, Citing Operating Costs; Financing Terms Threaten Losses
By DANIEL MICHAELS
As Airbus prepares to celebrate as early as Friday the first flight of its A350, which already has attracted more than 600 orders, the European aircraft maker and its bankers are facing what could be hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on the new airplane’s failed predecessor.
In 2002 Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. founder Richard Branson unveiled the first big Airbus A340 jetliner at a glitzy spectacle, with supermodel Claudia Schiffer on hand to draw attention to the $200 million plane.
Qatar Airways has tried to shed four A340 jets, such as the one above, seen in 2006. Airlines say the planes are too costly to operate.
Last fall, however, Virgin sent the huge jetliner back to Airbus, with its metallic silver-and-purple exterior repainted generic white. Now, Airbus is negotiating to sell the plane to a Maltese leasing company for less than $20 million, a steep markdown, according to people close to the talks.
Virgin isn’t alone in ditching its big A340s. Leading airlines from Canada to China have unloaded the massive planes after just a few years of use, and new takers have been few. The four-engine intercontinental jets cost too much to operate, the airlines say.
“Unfortunately,” says Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, the A340 isn’t an old car “that you can just throw away.” He said a deal to shed the four A340s that Qatar owns collapsed because the potential customer wanted extra cash to take the planes.
Plunging A340 values are hitting major European banks that finance many Airbus sales. More than 10 European banks are pressing Airbus to compensate them for losses on A340 deals or do more to find homes for unwanted aircraft, according to people close to the talks.
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