Will Emirates Order The A350-1000?

Emirates and the Airbus A350-1000 have been the industry’s most-watched could-it-happen storylines for years.

At each global airshow, speculation rises as the Dubai-based carrier looks to revisit its long-haul fleet plans and place new orders for commercial aircraft.

While the A350-1000 has made sense on paper as an efficient, high-capacity, ultra-long-haul twin-jet, Emirates has never been a straightforward customer and has never gotten even close to placing an order.

The airline has instead continually weighed down the jet with concerns about its durability and more, choosing Boeing’s 777X as its preferred aircraft.

This debate intensified in 2025 when Emirates gave its clearest answer on the strategy and role of Airbus’ flagship product. So, will the airline ever order the aircraft?

A 2025 Verdict Arrives

The clearest signal on the fate of a possible A350-1000 order came at the 2025 Dubai Airshow, where Emirates, despite reports, went in the opposite direction.

The airline confirmed that it had no plans to order the A350-1000 and said it would rather wait and see how things developed across multiple areas before considering such a request for the type.

This matters because, for the Dubai-based carrier, this was no vague answer; rather, it was not in the airline’s immediate focus moving forward, and, for the time being, priorities lay elsewhere.

While Emirates and Clark, in particular, have been known to say one thing and the other occur, the clearest signal came in the form of an order for the direct competitor to Airbus’s flagship product.

Why The Boeing 777X Wins

Emirates’ sizeable order for the 777X, its latest to date, came at the 2025 Dubai Airshow amid escalating A350-1000 talk and is one of the primary reasons this model has lost momentum in talks.

The airline confirmed it would order a further 65 Boeing 777-9s, bringing its total commitment to the series to 270 aircraft and making it arguably one of the most important customers of the new long-haul jet.

For Emirates, the 777X isn’t just a type that’ll fill a small role; it’s going to be one of the most important aircraft in the business for many decades as it continues to drive these large twinjets for the future of its hub-and-spoke model.

Despite all the associated delays, frustrations, and more over the last six years, Emirates remains committed to having this at least for the time being as the long-term flagship.

How The Order Competes

The reason the 777X deal was so impactful is that the 777-9 and the A350-1000 sit in the same high-capacity, long-haul bracket, pushing airlines to choose one or the other, which is why Emirates was asked repeatedly.

The 777-9 is the direct answer to Airbus’ largest A350, and both are currently on the market as the largest planes by seat count, marking the end of the era of quad-engined superjumbos such as the Airbus A380.

In simple terms, Emirates now wants a very large aircraft with long range and strong economics, but also enough seats to serve its key premium routes. It’s a long list in theory, but one that applies to much of what Airbus and Boeing are pushing with their new flagships.

At least in the Dubai-based carrier’s eyes, the 777X, for the moment, remains the clearer fit for their future, while also recognising that they have a strong ecosystem that already includes the 777 family, and that its future growth is still directly tied to that family.

Why Has The A350-1000 Missed Out?

The biggest obstacle to date for the A350-1000, at least publicly, has been confidence in the engines, a recurring cause for concern.

A deal reportedly failed to land on several occasions after Emirates raised concerns not strictly about the aircraft itself and its specifications, but rather about the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97s installed on it.

Clark’s specific focus was on the maintenance and performance of these engines under Gulf conditions. While the A350 family remains in the business, it was a strategic choice to opt for the smaller A350-900 rather than the larger model.

While these concerns have been present for some time, they did not disappear overnight; even in 2025, Clark highlighted engine durability as a key reason, among others.

Airbus Loves The A350-900

Despite the A350-1000 missing out, the A350 remains an important part of Emirates’ operations, even with past cancellations of this fleet type, and represents the newest model to join the business after years of just the A380 and 777.

Emirates sees the A350-900 as key to its future mid-range, more-regional international operations. It is viewed as an excellent aircraft, offering the airline the flexibility and practicality to deploy to markets that do not align with the mission profiles of existing jets.

While the A380 and 777 serve as the backbone of the fleet, not all cities require aircraft of these sizes, and deploying them to such cities may put the routes at risk of becoming unprofitable. This is where the mid-sized A350-900 comes into the equation.

Since its launch, Emirates has been able to radically shift how it serves its international network, not just from a cabin standpoint with Premium Economy, but also in the routes it can serve year-round and in redeploying existing assets as needed.

Airbus A380 Replacement Woes

Emirates also still has a huge A380-heavy network, and that creates a fleet gap that, for the moment, no single aircraft can perfectly replace or solve.

Airbus has long since ended A380 production, and now the airline is aware that the superjumbo will soon have to be retired from the fleet without a dedicated replacement.

This is why the airline continues to talk about bigger aircraft concepts, the airline needing something larger than the A350-900, and even the A350-1000, but still holds the flexibility to be efficient and versatile on the network, while something that makes sense for planemakers to produce.

At times, the airline has called for an A380neo-like aircraft, hoping to add improved engines to the A380-800 platform alongside other refinements, but time and time again, this has been pushed back. Now, Clark is focusing on a much simpler solution that is more likely to launch.

A350-2000 or 777-10

This solution is where things get interesting, with Tim Clark openly pushing for larger Boeing 777X and Airbus A350 derivative, often referred to as the 777-10 and A350-2000.

These two aircraft types, though never released, received their clearest sign of a prospective launch late last year, when, based on reported customer interest, the respective planemakers indicated they were progressing with internal feasibility studies.

The ideas are straightforward: leverage the existing platform offered to customers, stretch the fuselage, and add more seats, meaning the jets would serve as a better replacement for the A380 and 747-type jets.

For now, both concepts remain study-level ideas rather than formally launched aircraft, but even with the A350-1000 in place, it doesn’t rule out a prospective larger model based on this jet being ordered.

Will Emirates Order It?

For now, an order for the A350-1000 seems further away than in recent times, but it’s still entirely possible; the latest comments suggest that a deal is unlikely in the near term, but not impossible.

Clark has left the door open to more A350s in general, highlighted the requirement for better engine perfromance but also pushed for a larger plane to be put on the market, if that’s the A350-2000 based on the -1000 instead of the 777-10 being purchased, that could be what the airline needs.

For now, commonality is key, and the 777X forms the backbone of that future despite not having been delivered and despite persistent delays in the overall certification process.