The Airbus A350 XWB is a family of long-range, wide-body airliners developed by Airbus. The first A350 design proposed by Airbus in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the A330 with composite wings and new engines. As market support was inadequate, in 2006, Airbus switched to a clean-sheet "XWB" (eXtra Wide Body) design, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB turbofan engines. The prototype first flew on 14 June 2013 from Toulouse in France. Type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was obtained in September 2014, followed by certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) two months later.
The A350 XWB is the first Airbus aircraft largely made of carbon fibre reinforced polymer. It has a new fuselage designed around a nine-abreast economy cross-section, up from the eight-abreast A330/A340. It has a common type rating with the A330. The airliner has two variants: the A350-900 typically carries 300 to 350 passengers over a 15,000 kilometres (8,100 nautical miles) range, has a 280-ton (617,300-pound) maximum take-off weight (MTOW); the longer A350-1000 accommodates 350 to 410 passengers, has a maximum range of 16,100 km (8,700 nmi) and a 319 t (703,200 lb) MTOW.
On 15 January 2015, the initial A350-900 entered service with its launch operator Qatar Airways, followed by the A350-1000 on 24 February 2018 with the same airline. The A350 XWB launch customer, Qatar Airways, is also currently the largest operator with 53 airplanes in its fleet. As of December 2020, A350 XWB orders stood at 915 aircraft, of which 406 had been delivered and 405 were in operation. It succeeds the A340 and is positioned to compete against Boeing's large long-haul twinjets: the 787-10, the 777, and its successor, the 777X.
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