Airbus expects that the A350-900 will suffer a fuel burn penalty of “about 1%” as a result of the empty weight being 2.2t greater than the planned specification at service entry but payload/range performance will be maintained.

In a detailed technical update for journalists in Toulouse today, A350 chief engineer Gordon McConnell confirmed that following the completion of the first detailed “structural sizing” of the A350-900, Airbus has established that the manufacturer’s weight empty is 2.2t greater than target and that “similar deltas” are expected for the -800 and -1000.

“At this point we think that we’ve got good maturity on the weight estimate and, although it’s not the result we wanted, it is prudent for us to take the decision to increase the maximum take-off weight by 3t across the family,” says McConnell. The target service-entry MWE for the A350-900 was 113.5t, but this has risen to 115.7t, he a

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