A350-1000: Extra widebody, Extra headaches

“The A350 will be pushed hard to prove its value…” Sounds familiar? Well, this article is not a repeat of Boeing Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jim McNerney’s comment during a previous conference call.

Rather, this piece will focus on the smokes and mirrors behind the A350-1000 XWB, which, is sometimes seen as a threat to the Boeing 777-300ER.

The A350-1000 seats 350 passengers, 4% less than the Boeing 777-300ER which seats 365 passengers; yet the A350-1000 XWB only has a 0.88% range increase over the B777-300ER, of which the range of the former aircraft is 8,000 nm (nautical miles) and the latter is 7,930 nm.

Worse still, the growing overweight problem on the A350-1000 will undoubtedly dampen its range as well as its payload performance, giving an embarrassing situation in which the “a step ahead of the 777″ A350-1000 may have a lower range than the 777-300ER.

According to Airways Aviation News‘ source who is close to the European airframer, that the “overweight problem continues to exist on all three models” and “the -1000 has the biggest [overweight] problem”.

The source gave an estimation on the -1000 overweight issue as around 9 tonnes, but he did not rule out that the actual figure may in fact be a lot higher.

Meanwhile, the Boeing 777-300ER has a MTOW of 775,000 lbs, whereas the A350-1000′s figure is standing at 657,000 lbs.

Moreover, the B777-300ER offers a much larger cargo space than the A350-1000 XWB, meaning that the latter aircraft will be no match to the former in terms of cargo capacity.

The 777-300ER has a total cargo volume of 7,120 cu. ft. whereas the A350-1000 has 5,966 cu. ft., a 16.2% difference.

In addition, the 777-300ER has a revenue cargo volume of 147 cubic meters (5,191 cu. ft.), a figure that the A350-1000 can never match given its much smaller total cargo volume and similar passenger capacities, implying that the A350-1000′s cargo bay will have little room left after the passengers’ luggage has been fully loaded.

This is crucial since this revene cargo volume can be used to carry extra freights which in turn boost the airline’s revenue and profit.

Regarding the A350-1000′s cruising speed, Airbus advertises its “typical cruise speed” as Mach 0.85, lending a false sense of the A350-1000 being faster than the B777-300ER.

Wrong entirely.

In fact, what Airbus is advertising is the A350-1000′s Mmo (Maximum Mach Operating no.) which is standing at Mach 0.85 whereas the B777-300ER’s Mmo is at Mach 0.87, according to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) document.

Airbus’ advertised “typical cruise speed” (but in fact Mmo) of Mach 0.85 is yet another manipulation of the misleading term, which is very funny for those who really have the insights.

As aforementioned, the A350-1000 is seriously overweight despite Airbus’ unanimous denial, and that this will significantly erase the fuel burning advantage over the 777-300ER.

Airbus originally advertised the A350-1000 XWB’s fuel-burning as being 25% lower than that of a 777-300ER.

That means the A350-1000 will burn 2.175 L of fuel per passenger per 100 km, a target of being even lower than the 787-9′s 2.4 L of fuel per passenger per 100 km.

However, given these overweight issues plaguing the aircraft, the A350-1000 is very likely, if not certainly, to miss this target.

Image Courtesy of Boeing

Boeing 777-300ER has since then achieved a further fuel-burning improvement of 3.6%, giving it a figure of 2.8 L of fuel per passenger per 100 km, instead of the 2.9 L figure originally targeted (“Boeing airlines on potential 777 successor (Part 1)“, 26th May 09).

Should Boeing continue to reduce the 777-300ER’s fuel burn, which is Boeing’s typical and consistent practice, then the 777-300ER will have a fuel burning of 2.7 L of fuel per passenger per 100 km, assuming another 3.6% improvement in its fuel-burn.

This will push the A350-1000 very hard to prove its economics. Another point which is noteworthy is, as the baseline model A350-900 is at least 2 years behind schedule, the A350-1000 may not enter the market until 2017.

And during these upcoming 7 years, the 777-300ER will continue to be the most fuel-efficient aircraft in this size class in the sky, with new orders being snared up for providing its superior fuel-burning & payload characteristics to these high-demanding airlines.

Since the A350 XWB was “industrially launched” in December 2006 until August 2009, the Boeing 777-300ER has received 170 orders whereas the A350-1000 has only received 75 orders, with criticisms over the A350-1000′s performance coming from Middle-Eastern airlines such as Emirates.

Should a need for launching a 777 successor arise, albeit its very slim chance in the foreseeable future, Boeing could “come to market within three to four years with a 777 replacement aircraft that is overwhelmingly superior to the A350,” Boeing Managing Director (MD) of Capital Markets Development Kostya Zolotusky claimed.

Well… the “a step ahead of the 777″ A350-1000 is itself under threat from the continuously improving 777-300ER, indeed.

“Boeing, airlines on potential 777 successor (Part 1)“
“Boeing, airlines on potential 777 successor (Part 2)“