Singapore Airlines will introduce a regional variant of the Airbus A350-900 later this year that will complement its Boeing 787-10s.
Chief executive Goh Choon Phong says that the regional A350s will have similar hard product to the 787s, but "will be configured in a manner that will allow us to stretch the distance a little longer than the 787-10."
He did not provide any other details of the regional A350's seat configuration, except saying that the carrier will announce it "when it is ready".
SIA's new 787-10s are configured with 337 seats in two classes, featuring 36 business class seats and 301 economy class seats. Both classes are new products that are manufactured respectively by Stelia Aerospace and Recaro.
The Star Alliance carrier is the launch customer for the lower weight A350-900 variant, which will be certificated to a 250t maximum take-off weight compared to the 278t of the standard A350-900.
Its Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines will be derated to 75,000lb-thrust (334kN), allowing cyclic engine maintenance intervals to be extended, but will otherwise be identical to other A350-900s.
Flight Fleets Analyzer shows that over the remainder of 2018, SIA is scheduled to take delivery of seven more A350s. It has 21 in service, which are mostly used on long-haul services to Europe and the United States.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
