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| Qatar Airways’ freshly painted Airbus A350 XWB on the factory lines in Toulouse, France. Photo: Qatar Airways. |
[Avionics Today 08-27-2014] Qatar Airways, the launch customer of the Airbus A350 Xtra Wide Body (XWB) aircraft is set to receive its first delivery before the end of this year. The Middle East carrier has now unveiled the livery of its newest aircraft, from the Airbus factory lines in Toulouse, France.
The Airbus A350 XWB completed its route proving world tour earlier this month in which the MSN 005 flight test aircraft touched down in 14 cities and flew an estimated 81,000 nm/151,3000 km in 180 flight hours.
As the launch customer, the airline has ordered 80 of the widebody A350 XWB, which will be deployed on a wide variety of routes served by the Qatar Airways network. Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways Group CEO, said that the airline is currently in the midst of a massive fleet expansion program and the incoming delivery of the Airbus A350 XWB into the fleet will be a significant milestone.