Another day and another delivery for Airbus, as they deliver their first Airbus A350-900 aircraft to Scandinavian Airlines.
The first aircraft – Ingegerd Viking is the first of eight Airbus A350s that will join the fleet and target the replacement of existing Airbus A340-300 aircraft.
Whilst the A340 is still a good aircraft, fuel and maintenance costs of running engines of a frame, versus the cost that having an aircraft with two engines have come into play.
Scandinavian Airlines itself is a heavy Airbus customer, with 51 Airbus A320 family aircraft and 17 A330/A340 aircraft in its fleet). The airline also uses Boeing 737 NextGen aircraft in its short to mid-haul operations.
As well as the seven Airbus A350 aircraft to come, the airline has 54 Airbus A320neo (with A321LR frames included in that).
As for the Airbus A350, SAS will configure the type in a three-cabin configuration with 300 seats in total:
- 40 “SAS Business” Business class seats
32 “SAS Plus” Premium Economy seats - 228 “SAS Go” Economy Class seats
The airline will start operating the type on long haul routes from the 28th January 2020, with Chicago O’Hare being the first destination of the type.
As the fleet grows, the SAS A350 fleet will spread its wings, with plans to operate the type to more North American destinations, as well as Asia.
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