Industry Airbus A330-900 receives EASA type certification
The Airbus A330-900 has received its type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
A respective certificate was issued by EASA´s Certification Director Trevor Woods. EASA´s Head of Large Aeroplanes Certification Ludovic Aron handed over the certificate to Airbus´ Head of Engineering for Commercial Aircraft, Jean-Brice Dumont. Airbus expects the certification of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to follow shortly.
Airbus´ three A330-900 testbed aircraft completed the flight test campaign within 1,400 flight hours. The first aircraft performed its maiden flight back in October 2017, meaning that the whole certification process took less a year.
Flight test campaign are important, because modern airliner have to fit into very strict safety requirements to ensure smooth and safe operations when transporting passengers. The certification is a big milestone for Airbus.
Launch customer TAP Air Portugal will take delivery of the first ever A330-900 soon. The aircraft already completed a route-proving tour around the world, while visiting 12 countries in total.
Guillaume Faury, President Airbus Commercial Aircraft stated: "The A330neo embodies Airbus’ spirit of innovation. This new generation aircraft with unparalleled efficiency and flexibility from short to long haul routes has tremendous market potential [....] We look forward to delivering the first aircraft equipped with the beautiful new Airspace cabin to our launch customer TAP Air Portugal in the coming weeks.”
The A330-900 is being powered by efficient Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, features a new 3D-optimised wing and new Sharklets, which lead to a better fuel economy. All advances bring a reduction in fuel consumption of 25 per cent.
To date, the A330neo Family has received over 1,700 orders from 120 customers. Currently more than 1,400 A330 aircraft are flying with over 120 worldwide operators.
Source © airbus.com