Cathay Pacific announced on Thursday that delivery of their first Airbus A350 will be delayed until the end of the first quarter. The delays are due to the new business seats which are apparently not yet ready for installation. Those seats are being made by Zodiac Aerospace which has recently been facing delays across the board, so much so that Airbus is not inviting them to bid on the A330neo.
More about the A350 in an earlier PMTTP post…
Airbus’ latest model, the A350, has seen much popularity among airlines that fly mid- to long-haul routes, including Qatar, Singapore Airlines, and Etihad. Qatar began commercial service with the A350 in January 2015.
Via The New Zealand Herald, the fourth biggest customer of the A350, Cathay Pacific, has just revealed that it will be flying the A350-900 variant to New Zealand. Cathay is scheduled to take delivery of their first A350 in February 2016 and will fly them on short-haul routes as a test run for the first few months.
…but perhaps most exciting is the announcement that revamped business class seats will be installed on the A350s. The current product found on the flagship 777-300ER is already one of the best in the industry, but Cathay is looking to improve upon it.
View from the Wing mentioned that the seats will come from Porsche Design and be an evolution, not an revolution from the current seats. However, it sounds like Cathay may have just spilled the beans on some additional cool features, including a dual-screen experience (read: touch screen remote). While the A350 will likely be the first to see these new seats, they should be rolled out to the rest of the fleet quickly.
The number of business class seats for that route will also be dramatically increased—from 26 seats on the A340 to 38 seats on the A350. That’s a whopping 46% more compared to what the same route have been seeing. The article also suggests that the new aircrafts may see Wi-Fi availability, something Cathay has hesitated to install its planes for a very long time.
I am excited to see what Cathay’s A350s will look like. However, the longer range variant, A350-1000, won’t be in service until 2018, so passengers in North America probably won’t get to experience the A350 until then.
Related – Trip Report – Cathay Pacific – “New” Business Class – JFK – Hong Kong (HKG)
A350 Related:
- Virgin Atlantic to End 4-Engine Flying with New A350-1000 Order
- A Compilation of all Routes Operated on Board Airbus A380, Airbus A350, Boeing 747-8I and Boeing 787 Aircraft
- Finnair Shares Pics of the New A350 Interiors
- Was United’s Order for A350-1000s Last Week Actually a Loss for Airbus and a Win for Boeing?
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2 comments
[…] American will introduce a brand new business class seat for the remainder of their B777-200s as well as B787-9s and A350s as per Brian Sumers, a correspondent for Aviation Week and a Condé Nast Traveler contributor. This will be the 5th business class variation for the airline since they introduced their Cathay like 777-300ER herringbone seat in 2013. The reason for the additional design is due to delivery and production delays at Zodiac, the seat manufacturer. Zodiac delays are impacting several carriers (see – Cathay Pacific’s A350 w/ New Business Class Delayed past Feb). […]
[…] The new Washington DC route will be operated by an A350, which features Business Class, Premium Economy, and Economy Class. Cathay Pacific currently flies the A350 to Newark (EWR) and San Francisco (SFO), among other international destinations, after a pretty tumultuous rollout. […]