Why The A350-1000 Is Gaining The Popularity Airbus Wished It Would A Decade Ago

Airbus spent most of the last decade watching its largest twinjet play second fiddle to an aircraft that had not yet carried a single paying passenger. The Airbus A350-1000 entered service with Qatar Airways in 2018, yet for years it lived in the shadow of the Boeing 777-300ER and, later, the Boeing 777X, which Boeing promised for 2020. That delivery is now targeted for 2027, about seven years late, and the market has finally started to move. By June, Airbus data showed the A350-1000 had 367 orders and 114 deliveries, a far healthier position than its sluggish early sales ever suggested.