A350 Deliveries and Routes

[9V-SPL]

9V-SMZ is scheduled to arrive in SIN on Thursday (31OCT19) with STA: 1440 as SQ8895.

[SQKevin]

9V-SMZ is displaying her Final Registration at the Delivery Centre.

[SQKevin]

9V-SMZ completed her CAF today. Delivery should take place next weekend or earlier.

[SQKevin]

Photos from the First Flight of 9V-SMZ.





Photo source: a350production.net

[SQKevin]

9V-SMZ performed her RTO and First Flight on the same day. Interesting to note that this is the first such occurrence for a SQ A350.

[oliverdave]

9V-SMZ had her first flight today.

[boing]

Thought after an engine change, they can just do a engine run test on the static aircraft to see that there's no vibration or any issues, and if necessary then to do a test flight only and not necessary do a scheduled short flight, and surprisingly SGB need an engine change as is still fairly new.

After an engine change, a high power run is performed to ensure everything is running well to release it into service.
However, a test flight or a non-ETOPS flight is required to be flown before an ETOPS aircraft can get its ETOPS status, thus the short hop.
As to why SGB requires an engine change, there could have been some issues or they might be following their policy with their A330s after the SSF incident

[flyguy]

Thought after an engine change, they can just do a engine run test on the static aircraft to see that there's no vibration or any issues, and if necessary then to do a test flight only and not necessary do a scheduled short flight, and surprisingly SGB need an engine change as is still fairly new.

[Heihei]

9V-SGB operated SQ116/117|07OCT (SIN-KUL-SIN) today.

Because SGB had to perform one non-ETOPS flight after an engine charge

[9V-JKL]

Some interesting related articles/discussion:

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1423349



https://leehamnews.com/2016/03/30/ai...-range-8100nm/

Good links! Thanks!

[flyguy]

Usually 116/117 load is always full or close to full and using the ULR is way too low seats. More likely it was a last min change of aircraft and there wasnt a standard regional aircraft. However SIA in the past have used the A340 on its lucrative SIN-JKT-SIN route as the A340s were available in between the US flights.

[MainlyMiles]

9V-SGB operated SQ116/117|07OCT (SIN-KUL-SIN) today.

First time a ULR has flown a commercial flight which wasn’t LAX/SFO/EWR since they joined the fleet. Was bound to happen eventually.

[9V-SPL]

9V-SGB operated SQ116/117|07OCT (SIN-KUL-SIN) today.

[9V-SPL]

Interesting info.
Quick search using picture search on A.Net and we've seen photos of
9V-SMD, J & M in SFO
9V-SMA, B, C, D, E, G, J, M in MAN

anymore*.

At some point, they stopped operating the 268T A359s to those destinations. Not necessarily for a lack of range, but perhaps to save on landing fees as others have suggested.

Some interesting related articles/discussion:

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1423349

In all cases the different weight variants are paper changes to an identical airframe making later in-service weight variant changes possible.

So why would an airline change to a different weight variant later in the aircraft’s life? Aircraft price and underway navigation and landing fees are based on the aircraft’s MTOW. To buy just the weight variant necessary to do the job is a way to save operational costs for the airlines. If operational conditions later change, it is a bonus to be able to adapt the aircraft.

https://leehamnews.com/2016/03/30/ai...-range-8100nm/

[9V-JKL]

The MTOW-268T A350s apparently do not get deployed to SFO, MAN, AMS, BCN and MXP.

9V-SMA to 9V-SME, 9V-SMG, 9V-SMJ and 9V-SMM.

The rest are MTOW-275T.

Interesting info.
Quick search using picture search on A.Net and we've seen photos of
9V-SMD, J & M in SFO
9V-SMA, B, C, D, E, G, J, M in MAN