Airbus Delays A350 Final Assembly Start

By Robert Wall

Longer-than-anticipated design activities for the A350XWB twin widebody are forcing Airbus to delay the aircraft’s final assembly start and first flight by several months.

Nevertheless, the aircraft maker still plans to deliver the first A350-900 as scheduled in mid-2013.

“Three months of buffer have been used,” says A350 program chief Didier Evrard ...

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