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Airline News / Finnair / Airplanes / Airplane Seats / A330 / A340 / A350 / Business Class Travel / → All Tags

Finnair Flashes Their Frosty Blue New Business Class

Another week, another new business class seat. This time, it's Finnair's turn to dazzle passengers with a fully horizontal comfy chair. Pair this new seat with their Marimekko design and revamped premium menus and things are a-changing at Finnair.

So the seats aren't exactly new since a few of them already sport some butt-prints on three of the carrier's Airbus 330s. Eventually they will be added to the entire fleet of long-haul planes —A340 and, eventually, A350—to make a consistent product for passengers. And, just like many other European business class upgrades, this one comes with aisle access for (almost) everyone.

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Airbus / A350 / A350 XWB / Airplanes / Airplane News / → All Tags

Airbus' Special Delivery: a Huge Composite Wing for a Plane That Doesn't Exist (Yet)

We’ll be the first to admit that we have a little bit of Boeing 787 fever, as we’re pretty much interested in everything the plane has to offer; from passenger seats to toilet seats we want to know about it. That being said, we want to remain fair and balanced—especially during election season—so we thought it was worth sharing a little news about Airbus and what they’ve been working on.

The Airbus A350 XWB is the next new plane scheduled to roll out of Airbus headquarters, and this bird will be the first Airbus plane fitted with carbon fiber and other composite bits and pieces in both the fuselage and the wings. The current schedule has a first flight at some point in 2013 with a delivery in 2014. We'll see about that.

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Airplane News / Airplanes / Boeing / Airbus / A350 / Airbus A350 / → All Tags

Airbus A350 Will Eventually Take On Boeing's 787, But Not Until Like 2014

After years of delays and issues the Boeing 787 has finally arrived in the skies. Now it’s time to focus our attention on the competition—the Airbus A350 XWB (eXtra Wide Body). These new Airbus birds will be utilizing carbon fiber materials, sporting larger windows, and should be able to fly pretty darn far without refueling. If those features sound familiar that’s just because the Boeing 787 does a lot of the same stuff in similar ways, so we say let the competition begin!

The A350 is going to come in a couple different flavors, so airlines—and rich dudes—can choose from the A350-800, A350-900, or the A350-1000. As the numbers go up the planes get bigger, and have room for more and more passengers. Alas even the A350-1000 probably won’t cannibalize market share from its behemoth big brother—the A380.

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No Sleep Till Dubai / Emirates / A380 / A350 / → All Tags

Emirates Pilots Can't Sleep; We Hope A350 Solves Their Problem

Had enough A380 news this year? We think we've almost reached our fill of tales of the new superjumbo, although the complaints from Emirates pilots that the plane runs so quietly they can't sleep definitely amused us. Apparently the sounds of screaming babies, flushing toilets and call buttons being pushed is no longer drowned out by engine noise and the pilots are not impressed.

The overly-quiet problem aside, we think we're ready to move on to the A350. It's the first Airbus plane to be largely constructed from carbon fiber reinforced plastic and should compete against Boeing's 777s and 787s.

Emirates is starting to look ahead to these planes too. They've said they expect to see the final design this February and have ordered 70 of the aircraft already. Hopefully the new design makes the A350 noisy enough for the pilots to sleep. And yep, we know that sentence doesn't make sense--obviously Emirates pilots are a special breed.

Related Stories:
· Emirates Air Expects A350 Design By Feb '09 [CNN]
· A380 Is Too Quiet Say Sleepless Pilots [The Age]
· Emirates coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: hartlandmartin]

Dreamliner / Boeing / A350 / 787 / → All Tags

Boeing's Dreamliner Not Happening Until 2009

Yes, Dreamliners in 2008 was just a dream.

The eagerly anticipated Dreamliner airplane from Boeing (also known as the 787) won't be in service until sometime in 2009.

Test flights for the massive plane were delayed again until July, the second such delay for the Dreamliner. Deliveries won't happen until early 2009, meaning you won't fly one of these bad boys 'til mid-2009 at the earliest.

Production delays and parts shortages are mostly to blame for the push-back.

Boeing is building more than half of the plane with carbon- fiber composites instead of aluminum, making it the first airliner of its kind. The Dreamliner is also Boeing's first attempt at a production process where suppliers deliver fully completed wing and fuselage parts.

"Completing the first plane is setting the pace to first flight,'' 787 program manager Pat Shanahan said on the call.``If anything has been learned here, it's how long it will take to complete somebody else's work. We thought we could modify our final assembly system to accommodate suppliers' work. We were wrong.''

Meanwhile Airbus SAS has some company in the mega-airplane delays department. Their widebody A350 (an answer to the Dreamliner) won't deliver until 2013. But at least they still have the A380.

[Photo: Life of Luxury]