According to the report of Airbus on April 23rd, Vietnam Airlines has become the first airline in Asia to use the latest advanced type of aircraft of this company named A350 XWB. The first A350 XWB will land at Vietnam airport in mid 2015.
Mr. Alan Pardoe, Chief Marketing Officer of Airbus has said that there are 3 versions of A350 XWB: A350-800 with carriage of 270 passengers in there-classes design, A350-900 with carriage of 314 passengers and A350-1000 with carriage of 350 ones. Thanks to the application of advanced technologies, the new plane type of Airbus reduces operating cost up to 20% per passenger seat, uses fuel more efficiently than same planes types on the market, especially Boeing 777-200 ER. In addition, A350 has outstanding advantages of wide seat, noise reduction, and air filter application on planes. As planned, Vietnam Airlines will have fourteen A350-900 aircrafts, of which ten units are directly ordered from Airbus and the rest 4 units are hired. This is really good news of Vietnam Airlines. With this project, Vietnam Airlines fleet expects to improve its services and reduce its cost of fuel with the aim of lowering price for passengers.
A350-800 of Vietnam Airlines in future - Source: Image from Wikimedia Commons
Also at the press conference in Hanoi, it was stated that Airbus, the leading aircraft manufacturer in the world had chose Nikkiso Vietnam Company to produce composite vertical bars of wings and Sharklet’s armor plates for 320s under sub-contract with main supplier Sharklet – the Korean Air Aerospace Division (KAL-ASD). Sharklet is a wing tip device which has been introduced in 2009 by Airbus. It is designed to enhance the payload-range performance of the A320 Family. Sharklets, a retrofit option, are expected to reduce fuel burn of up to 4% over longer sectors, which may correspond to annual CO2 reduction of around 700 tones per aircraft. With 4,280 aircrafts of A320 type which will be delivered to customers all over the world, this contract is expected to ensure a long-term work for Nikkiso Vietnam.
Mr. Jean Francois Laval, Executive Vice President of Airbus in Asia said that the company chose Vietnam to produce aircraft’s components because the aviation market of Vietnam was growing fast, the cost of production was low and Airbus received favorable supports from Vietnamese Government. The company is also researching to expand the scale of production and increase the number of factories in Vietnam in the future.
A350-800 on its flight - Source: Image from Wikimedia Commons
Earlier this year, another airline in Vietnam named Vietjet Air currently operates ten A320 Airbus aircrafts and has ordered over 100 A320 aircrafts including firm orders for 63 A320s, plus 30 purchase rights and more 7 lease aircrafts. Jetstar Pacific Airlines, with two main shareholders: Vietnam Airlines and Qantas Group, is being operated totally by Airbus aircrafts, with 6 A320s which are serving for domestic routes at present.
