A350 continues to make inroads into Australia

The Airbus A350XWB is continuing to make its presence felt in Australia with several airlines in the past month announcing increased services using the fuel-efficient aircraft.

Singapore Airlines became the latest when it announced on Tuesday it would start a daily A350-900 service to Melbourne from May 11 on its SQ208/207 services. The move means Melbourne will have two daily Singapore A350 services until June 30 when its SQ218/217 flights revert to Airbus A380.

The 253-seat aircraft comes with 42 business class seats, 24 in premium economy and 187 in economy.

The change means three of Singapore’s four daily flights from Melbourne will now offer premium economy.

 “We have seen good demand for our Premium Economy product in Melbourne,” Singapore Airlines regional vice president Tan Tiow Kor said in a statement.

 “I am sure the addition of a third flight that offers our Premium Economy cabin will be warmly welcomed by customers, as will the decision to operate the A350 on a daily basis.”

Qatar Airways last week announced it was would use the A350 to resume daily services to Adelaide from December 2.

Qatar said performance on the Doha-Adelaide route, which had been reduced to five services a week, had exceeded expectations in terms of consumer demand and air freight.

 “Trade and air freight between Australia and the Middle East have significantly increased over the past year and we are proud to play a role in this exciting expansion for South Australian businesses,’’ Qatar’s Australasian senior manager, Adam Radwanski, said.

Cathay Pacific last month announced it would introduce its first scheduled A350 service to Perth on its daily CX170/171 services and a second A350 service into Melbourne (CX163/178) from October 29.

The airline started its first A350 service into Melbourne in February and last month started using the plane on daily A350 flights into Brisbane.

The move means a bigger aircraft for Perth and means two of Cathay’s three daily services to Melbourne use the A350.

Airbus had delivered 70 A350-900s worldwide by February and has orders for more than  820 planes in the overall A350 XWB family.

The next cab off the rank, the A350-1000, is due to fly later this year and two of three aircraft involved in the flight test program underwent high altitude, hot weather testing in South America last month.

Airbus said early test results confirmed the good performance and behavior of both the aircraft and its Trent XWB-97 engines.

“This is a major successful milestone in the aircraft certification flight test campaign,’’ it said.