The A350-1000 — the newest member of Airbus’s Widebody family of aircraft (www.airbus.com)— has successfully completed its Functional and Reliability testing, bringing the aircraft a step closer to Type Certification this month.

The first customer delivery — to Qatar Airways — will follow soon after.

The Functional and Reliability testing took the flight test aircraft (MSN065) across Europe and South America. In less than two weeks, the aircraft flew about 65,200km, representing 150 flight hours, as per certification requirements.

The test flight was operated by Airbus flight test crews, with the participation of Airworthiness Authority pilots from the European Aviation Safety Agency.

The A350-1000 has a high level of commonality with the A350-900, with 95% common systems part numbers and the same Type Rating.

It has a longer fuselage (to accommodate 40 more passengers), plus a modified wing trailing edge, new six-wheel main landing gears and more-powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines.

To date, 11 customers from five continents have placed orders for a total of 169 A350-1000 aircraft.