Etihad Airways Orders Airbus A350 Freighters

Etihad Airways has confirmed it’ll exercise options and thus grow its total order backlog for the upcoming Airbus A350 Freighter.

The Abu Dhabi-based company wants to acquire three additional aircraft, bringing the total order to ten units.

FreightWaves confirmed such an update with the publication speaking with the VP of Etihad Cargo. An additional commitment to the A350F being activated is a testament to recent solid results published across the cargo division.

Furthermore, a deal backs Etihad Airways’s growth plans, which have been unveiled and are titled Journey 2030. These plans will see mass growth across the company from a passenger and freight standpoint.

While much emphasis will continue to be placed on passenger operations, the freight division is still equally important, and Etihad Airways is committed to serving available demand.

Moreover, there are greater opportunities to pounce following the Group’s fantastic results across key markets such as Hong Kong, broader Asia, and from its home in the Middle East.

That expansion will see the Etihad Cargo fleet more than double in the upcoming years, growing the current fleet to 15 freighter aircraft by the decade’s end.

Fleet data indicates that Etihad Cargo has just five Boeing 777Fs. It intends to improve this offering when the next-generation A350F is delivered in the coming years.

The Airbus A350F has become a fundamental pillar of the next generation for freight operators such as Etihad, which has looked to leverage the next-generation efficiency to their advantage for long-term flying.

While the A350F has yet to be certified or wholly built, there is already a backlog, and many companies are interested in adding it to their future plans.

A lot of that interest comes from this aircraft being considered the first of a new era of freight flying with a greater emphasis on efficiency.

The rival to the A350F is Boeing’s upcoming 777-8F, based on the 777X passenger series. The two aforementioned new freight planes are expected to compete against one another for years to come, attempting to take market share from one another.

Arguably, analysts believe a lot more rides on the fate of the A350F, and its success is being broadly considered the manufacturer’s real push into the freight scene, which Boeing has largely dominated in recent times.

Etihad Airways’s upping of its commitment to the A350F is a good sign, as it allows the programme to now have close to 60 total orders from freight operators and major international leasing companies.