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By Bjorn Fehrm

Introduction  

January 28, 2020, © Leeham News: Last week, we analyzed the smallest member of the Airbus A350 family, the A350-800. After Airbus changed the variant to a non-optimal "cut and shut" variant, it was no longer competitive.

Airbus froze the development of the A350-800 and then let it slip out of the program (it's never officially canceled). The A330neo became the replacement for the A350-800. Was this the right decision? Is the A330neo the better airplane?

Summary

• We saw the A350-800 in its final form had a problem competing with Boeing's 787. This created a problem for the Airbus widebody program below 300 seats.
• After a thorough investigation, Airbus found a way to update the A330 to take the place of the A350-800. We use our airliner performance model to find out how well the replacement performs.