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A350XWB, the Plane Airbus Did Not Want To Build, Makes Maiden Flight
McGruber writes "The BBC reports that the Airbus A350XWB (extra wide body) has made its first flight. Like the Boeing 787, the A350 offers airlines the chance to combine long-range services with improved fuel efficiency. The A350's fuselage is made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic, while many other parts of the aircraft use titanium and advanced alloys to save weight. It also has state-of-the-art aerodynamics, and engine manufacturer Rolls Royce has produced a new custom-designed power unit. Airbus claims that all of this means the A350 will use 25% less fuel than the current generation of equivalent aircraft. It also points out that noise and emissions will be well below current limits."
Does any manufacturer really want to design new planes? The engineers do, it's their job & mostly their passion but the shareholders won't want to if they don't have to. Every time you design a new aircraft you commit to billions of investment and lots of risk, both financial and technical.
The saying I was most often quoted in my aerospace degree "How do you make a small fortune? Start with a large fortune and invest in aerospace".
The best that you'll probably get is that once it becomes clear that a planned development needs to start that the shareholders decide to go all-out for it, and the rest of the company commit to it 100%.