Airbus A350-900 Orders Stands for 75% Airbus A350 Orders. Question: WHY?

Airbus A350-900 Orders Stands for 75% Airbus A350 Orders. Question: WHY?

When have a deep look into Airbus's orders&delivery pages, I have noted some interesting figures.I will be listing and summarizing these figures and then we look for the narratives behind these such results. 

Interesting Figures:
 
1) The first outstanding item was that customers did not desire very much the Airbus A350-800 even tough it is the first version presented to the media. Since A350 was presented, it has collected only 16 orders! That is not all! The half or the order is from Russian carrier Aeroflot Russian Airlines and the other half is from Asian Airlines!

We see that A350-800 model desired by only 2 carriers and they are from Russia and Asia. We might be discussing the possible reasons for such interesting figure in the following pages. 

Airbus has not even put these orders into production yet!

2) A350-900 model has already collected 599 orders so far. This a record. Only in September 2016, it received 33 orders and airliners shows a great interest on this model.  The main order from the airlines as follow: Singapore Airlines 67, Qatar Airways 43, Etihad Airways 40. We also see the aircraft leasing companies has a strong believe in the model.

Airbus seems it is not able to meet such high demand. So far only 41 A350-900 model have been delivered and another 41 is also under production currently. The exception is that Airbus will increase the production capacity for the model. 

3) Airbus A350-1000 which has the longest fuselage of the model, has 195 orders so far and none of the orders have been transferred to the factory production line yet. Qatar Airways  and Etihad Airways have the biggest orders on this model too.

After having all these figures laid on us, lets discuss the narratives that why the airlines and aircraft leasing companies do not show much interest on the models A350-800 and A350-1000; or if ask the question as backward why the companies enjoy A350-900 so much than the other models.

 
 Question: WHY?

1) One of the reasons might be that Airbus will start the production of this model in the following years, however production of A350-900 has been already started. Within the highly dynamic aviation environment it is not very possible to be patient for a very long.

2) Another main reason might the passenger capacity of the models. As known, Airbus has been keeping the producing Airbus A330-300 and A330-200 models as well. Also making some update with A330 Neo models!

What we are seeing is that these Airbus wide-body models are competing with each other! Airbus A332 has 250 and A333 has 290 passenger capacity. Then we look to A350 family; A350-800 has 280, A350-900 has 325 and finally A350-1000 has 366 seat capacity.

So we see that A350-800 has a very similar passenger capacity to A330-300. We believe this is one of the reason that why A350-800 is not in much desire. And 366 passenger capacity may be deemed too much for the airlines and this the reason why they do not like A350-1000 model very much. However, middle east airlines such Etihad and Qatar see this model valuable as they need long range, high passenger capacity and lower costs. 

Briefly, airliners still like to use traditional and experienced models such  Airbus A330 and do not want to change the model yet.

3) The main demand is on a range between medium and long which is around 8000 miles. Basically, A350-900 is the best solution for this demand. The new model enable to lower the fuel, operation and maintenance costs, provide a service to 325 passengers and can fly about 8000 miles.

As most of us know, the initial unfortunate problems that Boeing 787 faced during the early stages, would narrow its opportunity on this model. This would be one of the another reason why A350-900 is that much desired.

Of course there might be some other reasons as well and we are looking forward to hearing your comments to collect the opinions. Thanks in advance.

Photo: Airbus