The Airbus A310 was the first Airbus aircraft to use a carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic vertical tail.
The A310 incorporated advanced composite construction in its vertical stabilizer, reducing structural weight while retaining the strength required for flight loads. This was an important early application of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic on a commercial airliner.
The aircraft was designed as a shorter and more efficient companion to the A300. Its development helped Airbus gain experience with new materials, systems and cockpit technologies before those ideas expanded into later aircraft families.
The A350 is widely associated with extensive composite construction, but it was not the first Airbus to use composites in a major structural component. The A320 family also uses composite parts, so “first” here refers specifically to Airbus’s first carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic vertical tail.