Rolls-Royce Joins Airbus and Qatar Airways to Celebrate Delivery of 1st A350-1000

Rolls-Royce today joined Airbus and Qatar Airways to celebrate the delivery of the first Airbus A350-1000 to enter service, powered by Trent XWB-97 engines.

His Excellency, Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways, Group Chief Executive, Fabrice Brégier, Airbus, and Chris Cholerton Rolls-Royce, President – Civil Aerospace, attended a formal aircraft handover ceremony at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France.

The Trent XWB-97 is the 97,000lb higher thrust version of the Trent XWB, the world’s most efficient large civil aero engine flying today and is also the fastest selling widebody jet engine ever, with over 1,700 engines ordered by 45 customers worldwide.

The other version of the Trent XWB, rated at 84,000lb, powers the A350-900 which first entered service in January 2015, again with Qatar Airways as the global launch customer. Today 290 of these engines are in service with airlines worldwide, having accumulated more than 1.3 million flying hours and achieving the best entry into service performance of any widebody engine, with outstanding reliability.

The event marks the start of a series of first aircraft deliveries for Rolls-Royce, with its engines also due to power the Airbus A330neo and the Boeing 787-10 into service in the coming months.

His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker said: “As an airline known for delivering innovation and world firsts Qatar Airways is proud to be the global launch customer for the Airbus A350 XWB-1000 and to take delivery of our first aircraft today. As the World’s Best Airline we look to work with the world’s best partners so I am pleased to be here today with Airbus and Rolls-Royce to celebrate this milestone in aviation history. We look forward to providing our customers with continued award-winning service from day one with this latest aircraft.”

Fabrice Brégier said: “It gives us huge pride at Airbus to deliver the very first A350-1000 to our launch customer Qatar Airways. This is another great moment for Airbus and I would like to thank Rolls-Royce for its continued support in providing this latest version of the fuel-efficient and quiet Trent XWB engines. As the most powerful engine ever developed for an Airbus aircraft, it’s yet another great feat of engineering from Rolls-Royce.”

Chris Cholerton said: “We are very proud to have worked with Qatar Airways and Airbus to deliver the engines for the latest version of the A350 XWB. Both are highly valued partners to Rolls-Royce and today marks another important step forward in our relationship together.

“We are excited to see the latest version of the Trent XWB entering service with Qatar Airways and look forward to this engine continuing to provide outstanding levels of reliability.”

Trent XWB – incredible engineering by numbers:

• It sucks in up to 1.3 tonnes of air, the equivalent of a squash court, every second at take-off.
• The force on a fan blade at take-off is equivalent to a load of almost 90 tons, the same as nine London buses hanging off each blade.
• High pressure turbine blades inside the engine rotate at 12,500 rpm, with their tips reaching 1,200mph – twice the speed of sound.
• At take off each of the engine’s 68 high pressure turbine blades generates around 900 horsepower per blade – the equivalent to that of a Formula One racing car.
• At full power, air leaves the nozzle at the back of the engine travelling at almost 1000mph.