Airbus Eyes A350 Production Rate Well Above 12 Jets a Month

Airbus’s jet chief wants a board decision this year on pushing A350 output past 12 a month — and has confirmed the planemaker is studying an even bigger stretched version to take on Boeing’s delayed 777X.

Airbus’s commercial aircraft chief is pushing for a board decision this year on raising A350 production well beyond the planemaker’s already-planned rate of 12 jets a month, he said Tuesday during the company’s 2026 Business Update, citing surging demand for the wide-body jet.

Lars Wagner, who has led Airbus’s commercial aircraft division since Jan. 1, told investors during a briefing that widening demand across the A350-900, A350-1000 and A350 Freighter variants justifies a faster ramp-up than the company’s current target of 12 aircraft a month by 2028, in remarks reported by FlightGlobal.

“Adding up all the widebody demand, especially on the A350, I see a possibility to increase the rate well beyond rate 12,” Wagner said.

He declined to name a specific figure but ruled out doubling the current target. “It’s not going to be 20, it’s somewhere in between,” Wagner said.

Wagner also confirmed Airbus is examining a stretched version of the A350 that would be larger than the A350-1000, the largest variant currently in production. “We are investigating the stretch version of the A350, even larger than the -1000,” he said.

Airbus’s target of 12 A350s a month by 2028 has held since late 2025. Earlier reporting from October 2025 described a two-step plan to reach 10 aircraft a month in 2026 en route to 12 by 2028; by December, the company’s stated target was described simply as 12 a month by 2028.

But actual output has lagged the pace needed to get there. Airbus had built 55 A350s for the year through late November 2025, averaging about five jets a month — short of a six-per-month baseline — and delivered only 33 A350-900s in the first nine months of 2025. Full-year A350 deliveries in 2024 totaled 57 aircraft, the baseline cited for the current ramp-up. Supplier Spirit AeroSystems has booked forward losses on both the A220 and A350 programs, reflecting supply-chain and cost pressure across the wide-body production ecosystem.

The push for higher rates comes as Airbus’s overall backlog keeps swelling. The company delivered 793 commercial aircraft to 91 customers in 2025, logged 193 A350 gross orders for the year, and closed 2025 with a record backlog of 8,754 aircraft, according to its January delivery report. By the end of May 2026, that backlog had grown further to 9,247 aircraft, and Airbus logged 16 A350 gross orders that month alone — 10 A350-900 passenger jets and six A350 Freighters.

Wagner’s comments extend a message he has delivered since taking over the division. In his first public remarks as commercial aircraft chief, at an industry conference in Dublin on Jan. 26, he said Airbus’s then-planned widebody rate was “by far not enough.” Speaking the same week at the Airline Economics conference, he said “the whole ecosystem is under pressure” and pledged to prioritize boosting production, with particular emphasis on the A350.

Rolls-Royce Holdings, which supplies the A350’s Trent XWB engines exclusively, said it is working with Airbus on the stretch study. Rolls-Royce Chief Executive Tufan Erginbilgic, speaking to reporters at the Farnborough International Airshow, said Airbus has not yet made a final call. “It appears Airbus has not yet made a decision, but Rolls-Royce is working with Airbus on related efforts,” Erginbilgic said. He added that a decision could come within the next 12 months, with first deliveries of a stretched jet not expected before the early 2030s if the program is approved.

An Airbus spokesperson, not identified by name, said “there is clearly market demand for large wide-body jets” and that the company is “reviewing ways to evolve the A350 to meet that demand.” The spokesperson said Airbus has not yet finalized whether to develop the larger jet but is looking at ways to expand the A350 family.

The push for a bigger A350 comes as Boeing’s competing 777X program remains delayed. First delivery of the 777-9 to launch customer Emirates has slipped roughly seven years from its original 2020 target and is now expected around mid-2027, and Boeing has booked about $5 billion in charges tied to the delays. Boeing Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg is seeking Federal Aviation Administration certification for both the 777X and the 737 MAX. Emirates President Tim Clark has publicly questioned the 777X’s near-term commercial viability, saying, according to a Wall Street Journal report, that the first 10 jets built should be “scrapped and turned into baked bean cans” — a remark he later said was a joke, while maintaining the early aircraft would be difficult to use commercially.

A larger A350 — referred to informally in industry circles as the “A350-2000” — would extend the jet’s fuselage beyond the current A350-1000 and could position Airbus to compete with Boeing’s 777-9 in the very-large widebody segment last served by the A380, which Airbus stopped building in 2019. Airbus is weighing a modest stretch that would use the existing Trent XWB-84 engine as well as a larger stretch that would require a new, higher-thrust engine; either path is expected to take roughly six to seven years of airframe and engine development. Airbus has not said which final-assembly site would handle a higher production rate or disclosed capital spending figures for any expansion.

Wagner’s comments came at Airbus’s annual Business Update in London, the same week as the Farnborough International Airshow, which runs July 20-24 in Farnborough, England. By July 21, airlines and lessors had placed roughly 288 firm orders at the show, according to a Reuters tally, including a Saudi carrier’s order for six additional A350-1000s — lifting its total to 31 — and a nine-aircraft A350 order from Philippine Airlines.

Separately, Airbus is also weighing a stretched version of its smaller A220 jet, sometimes called the “A220-500.” As of June, the company had not committed to launching that program at Farnborough. The A220 study is unrelated to the A350 stretch discussion.

Trade body ADS Group estimated in an April report that Airbus and Boeing together are sitting on roughly 12 years of production in combined backlog, underscoring the industrywide pressure to raise output.