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A350-XWB test flights making progress

Singapore - Test flights of the Airbus A350-XWB, which is scheduled to come into service later this year, have seen "remarkable progress", the European aircraft maker said Monday.

Fernando Alonso, senior vice president for flight and integration tests at Airbus, told reporters on the eve of the Singapore Airshow that the results of the flight tests were "way beyond our expectations".

"It is really quite a remarkable progress in the flight testing. I think we are going twice as fast as we have ever been going before," Alonso said.

"On average we used to fly between 50 to 55 hours a month... but on the A350, we have been routinely flying 100 hours a month," he said.

Test flights of the aircraft began in June last year.

As of February 10, the two A350-XWB test aircraft have accumulated more than 1 000 flight hours between them.

Alonso said Airbus would introduce three more test aircraft for flight testing.

The five test aircraft need to complete 2 500 hours before they are certified as airworthy by US and European authorities.

The tests on the A350 included flights to Bolivia for high altitude flying and to Iqaluit, a city in northern Canada, for cold weather testing.

Airbus said it has received 814 orders so far from 30 countries for the A350 XWB, a long-range, wide-body plane which is slated to begin service with Qatar Airways in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The A350 flight-test aircraft dubbed MSN 3 will perform its first airshow flying display at the Singapore event that starts Tuesday.

Airbus and rival US-based Boeing are among the key participants at Asia's biggest aerospace and defence show.


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