Airbus A350-900 receives EASA type certification

The EASA A350-900 Type Certificate was signed by EASA’s Executive Director, Patrick Ky. The document was handed over to Airbus’ Executive Vice President Engineering, Charles Champion and Airbus’ A350 XWB Chief Engineer, Gordon McConnell.

“Receiving the A350-900 Type Certification from EASA is a great achievement for Airbus and for all our partners who have contributed to designing, building and certificating this fantastic, new generation aircraft. The A350-900 is now ready to fly from the nest and be enjoyed by airlines and passengers,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President and CEO. “The A350 XWB embodies many extra innovative technologies which make all the difference in passenger comfort and airline efficiency.”

“The A350 XWB manufacturing programme has also been innovative and ambitious, aiming for a fully mature aircraft at entry into service and this is what we are proud to be delivering to our first A350 XWB customer, Qatar Airways, before the end of the year. Our fleet of five test aircraft completed the certification campaign, on time, cost and quality. Accumulating more than 2,600 flight test hours, we created and successfully achieved one of the industry’s most thorough and efficient test programmes ever developed for a jetliner,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President and CEO.

Analyst Saj Ahmad commented: “Winning certification for the baseline A350-900 now paves the way for launch customer Qatar Airways to get yet another ground breaking and fuel efficient workhorse for its ever-expanding fleet and also effectively gives Airbus the green light to get into full production mode and start delivering the several hundred units it has in its backlog.

“The A350-900 is key to a number of Middle East airlines ranging from Qatar Airways, ALAFCO, Kuwait Airways and Etihad. While there has been a considerable blow with Emirates cancelling its entire A350 order, the jet is still primed to replace a number of older jets like the A340 and early 777-200 models.”

Ahmad added: “Boeing's own 787-8 has been well scrutinised for have post-service entry glitches, none of which were major per-se, notwithstanding the grounding due to the battery woes, but the type has steadily gained robustness as its dispatch reliability is now higher than that of the A380 (which has been in service almost twice as long) and Airbus will be keen to ensure that its new A350-900 can not only follow the 787s performance mould, but they'll be watching the jet meticulously to avoid any in-service angst that may not have been discovered in flight testing.
Qatar Airways has been a big proponent of the A350-900 and will be keen to deploy the type on as many of its long haul routes, particularly to the USA, where it can make a decisive and competitive impact versus US airlines.”