Article from BTNews 31 JULY 2017
A350XWB No 100
The 100th Airbus A350 XWB, claimed by the manufacturer to be the world’s most modern wide-body, has been handed to its new owner, China Airlines, just 30 months after the first delivery in December 2014.
Airbus COO and president commercial aircraft Fabrice Bregier said: “The 100th A350 XWB milestone comes as we reach our fastest wide-body production ramp-up, on track to meet the target of ten A350 deliveries per month by the end of 2018.
“We are especially proud to deliver today’s aircraft to our long-standing customer China Airlines. The A350 is setting new standards for long-haul air travel, thus being the perfect aircraft for China Airlines to expand its network.”
The carrier’s chairman, Nuan-shuan Ho, said with worldwide demand for air travel continuing to grow, especially on routes linking Asia with Europe and North America, the A350 XWB was a “key asset” and would be the basis for developing the long-haul network.
Bregier said A350s had now been delivered to 14 airlines worldwide and were flying with “an outstanding operational reliability rate” of 99%. He added: “This is a remarkable statistic at this early stage of the programme.”
Airbus has recorded a total of 847 firm orders for the A350 XWB from 45 customers worldwide.
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