Article from BTNews 12 FEBRUARY 2018
New A330-800 rollout
The newest member of the A330neo Family, the A330-800, has rolled out of the paintshop, on track for its first flight mid-2018.
The A330-800 is the new generation 250 seater from Airbus’ largest twin aisle family. With its 242-tonne Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) as base variant, the A330-800 can operate routes of up to 7,500nm and with the recently launched 251-tonne MTOW variant the aircraft can operate ultra-long-range routes of up to 8,150nm.
Essentially an upgrade of the A330-200 with over 600 aircraft in operation, the Dash 800 is claimed to bring new generation economics and comfort in addition to unprecedented range to the 250-seat aircraft market. Together with the larger 300-seat A330-900 they share 99% commonality, having the same airframe, engines and cross crew training. This gives operators great flexibility to use either aircraft in their fleet according to network needs in size and range.
Both of these widebody aircraft incorporate new Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, zero-splice nacelle, titanium pylon, new wings and new Airspace by Airbus Cabin. The most visible new features of the A330neo wings are the specially developed curved wingtip Sharklets – which draw on A350 XWB technology, extending the wingspan to 64m, providing state of the art aerodynamic characteristics.
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