Airbus Puts A350 Delivery Target First in Critical Year | Aviation International News

Airbus Puts A350 Delivery Target First in Critical Year

Having completed assembly of the first flight-test version of the A350XWB, Airbus aims to avoid further delays to a program previously set back by supply-chain glitches. [Photo: Airbus]

By Ian Sheppard

January 28, 2013

For Airbus and its A350XWB program, 2013 should prove a critical year. With service entry already pushed back to the second half of 2014, the European airframer is carefully managing expectations for a first flight as it seeks to resist the temptation to rush the key milestone in time for June’s Paris Air Show. At the consortium’s annual press conference last week, company executives would talk only of a “mid-2013” maiden flight, while trumpeting the completion of the first airframe (MSN2), expected to start initial static tests in the spring. Airbus plans to use the second aircraft (MSN1), assembly and “power-on” of which it achieved in December, for flight-testing. Soon it plans to start building a third A350 (MSN3) at its final assembly line in Toulouse, France.

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