Qatar Airways will base its first Airbus A350-900 at London Heathrow in early January where it will undertake noise demonstrations with the airport operator.
Speaking in Toulouse during the delivery ceremony for the first A350 on 22 December, Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker said he wanted to use the twinjet to demonstrate how quiet modern aircraft are to the airport’s local residents.
“We will base our first A350 at Heathrow for four to five days at the beginning of January to measure its noise emissions to prove to the British people that staying in the vicinity of an airport with modern aeroplanes flying around, they will hardly disturbed,” he says.
Al Baker says that the aircraft will be ferried to Heathrow for the trials as the airlines works up with the new type ahead of its service debut on 15 January between Doha and Frankfurt.
Qatar Airways expects to have received nine A350-900s by the end of next year, says Al Baker. He has not disclosed any other destinations beyond Frankfurt, saying only that the type will be operated to other European destinations as well as to points in “the Far East, the Indian subcontinent and ultra-long-haul flights to the eastern seaboard of the USA”.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
