Qatar Airways operated the first scheduled commercial flight of the Airbus A350-1000 in 2018.
Qatar Airways introduced the A350-1000 on 24 February 2018, operating its first scheduled service between Doha and London Heathrow. The airline was the launch operator for the longest A350 passenger version and had already introduced the smaller A350-900 several years earlier.
The A350-1000 has a longer fuselage and greater passenger capacity than the A350-900. Both variants use a carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic fuselage and wings, along with Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines. The aircraft was designed for long-haul operations with lower fuel use and emissions than many older wide-body types.
Qatar Airways’s A350-1000 launch should not be confused with the A350 family’s first commercial service, which used the A350-900. It also differs from the launch of the A350-900, for which Qatar Airways was the launch customer but not the first operator in the same sense as the -1000 introduction.