Airbus, the A350 and other musings from Toulouse

The annual Airbus Innovation Days are normally two days of briefings from senior Airbus executives. But this week’s formalities kicked off with an announcement by Airbus that Emirates has cancelled its order for 70 A350s. The next day, we went flying in MSN2, the second A350 test aircraft. In between we got updates on the various new engine options, both planned and proposed.

In this week’s Check 6 podcast, recorded at Airbus’ delivery center in Toulouse, I talked to Jens and Joe about what implications the Emirates cancellation could have on the A350 program. Some of you have speculated here aviationweek.com that Emirates could be looking at the Boeing 747-8i instead, but Jens explains why that’s unlikely.

We also discuss the progress of the A320neo and its slice of the total narrowbody pie. Finally, is a bubble really brewing?