The Airbus A350 XWB (which stands for extra wide body) is the latest aircraft by the European manufacturer that was designed from scratch and not on the basis of another aircraft type. After I had the pleasure to be part of the maiden flight celebrations of Qatar Airways in Frankfurt after the very first commercial flight of the A350, I was looking forward to getting to know the Lufthansa version of it. After the arrival of the first aircraft in December 2016, Lufthansa brought the airport to Frankfurt for one short visit, which gave me the opportunity to take a closer look!
Lufthansa’s first Airbus A350 parked at Terminal 1.
Even though the weather wasn’t that great, hundreds of people showed up to inspect LH’s new flagship (besides the A380 and Boeing 747-8i of course). The aircraft in question is registered D-AIXA and named after the beautiful city of Nürnberg (Nuremberg in English). It was delivered nearly two years after the first A350s were handed over to the launch customers. This meant that the first teething troubles had already been sorted out, a problem for every launch customer (just remember the problems of the Airbus A320neo at the beginning). Let’s look at the outside of the aircraft!
Exterior
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- The cargo door is open!
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- The A350 has its own marked spot on the parking position.
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- Rear stairs attached.
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- Front gear assembly
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- Parking brake is set
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- Main gear with chocks in place.
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- Hydraulic lines to the brakes
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- No Step! You could destroy the fragile main gear 😉
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- Rolls-Royce Trent XWB specially designed for the Airbus A350! It is a Three-shaft, high bypass ratio, axial flow, turbofan engine that delivers up to 375 kN of thrust!
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- The fan section is 3 meters in diameter!
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- The inlet design further optimizes air flow and reduces noise.
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- The curved design of the fans looks truly marvelous
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- There is just one fan stage (!) and the engine has a bypass ratio of 9.6:1
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- Looking into the engine from behind
Cabin and interior
Everyone had been waiting to take a short view into cabin and cockpit, which meant that the aircraft was completely full and long lines formed outside at the entrance. Lufthansa staff, airport workers and journalists were eager to visit. I was very impressed by the beauty of the cabin and although I had already seen and used the Business Class product, I was up for a surprise in Economy! Lufthansa operates the a350 in mixed layout with 48 Business Class, 21 Premium Economy (always worth the little extra price) and 224 Economy Class seats, giving a total maximum of 293 passengers! This is roughly the same number of passengers as on the Airbus A340-600 which is much longer and has four engines.
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- First stop is the cockpit
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- Very modern but Airbus-like design of the flight deck
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- Business Class as usual, but with seats turned slightly towards the windows
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- I love the big screens!
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- Premium Economy is now located directly behind Business and in front of Economy Class – much bigger seats than in Y class.
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- Not fundamentally new, but featuring a new colour concept – Economy Class
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- Each seat row has a different shade of blue
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- 3-3-3 configuration in the main cabin
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- Seats are slim, but comfortable and with big screens
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- Crew rest area
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- Rear galley
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- Outside door lock mechanism
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- Baby bassinet
After all the excitement it was already time for the aircraft to depart again.
I have yet to fly on one these birds. But as they are only operating out of Munich at this time to a limited number of destinations, I haven’t yet managed to make it onto the Airbus A350. But with up to 25 aircraft operated by Lufthansa by 2021 I will surely have the chance to do so in the future.
Buy a print
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Qatar Airways A350
If you would like to see my report on the first commercial flight of an Airbus A350 by Qatar Airways, then don’t hesitate to check out the blog post here: First scheduled Airbus A350 flight world-wide arrives in Frankfurt!
