Airbus A350F Programme Faces Another Delay

The A350F Has Now Been Delayed Three Times, and Airbus Just Moved the First Flight Date Again Without Admitting It

Airbus has quietly shifted the A350F's first flight target from Q3 2026 to "before end of 2026", its third schedule revision since launching the programme in July 2021 with a 2025 entry-into-service target. Certification and first delivery remain planned for the second half of 2027, meaning Airbus is compressing its flight test programme into roughly six months rather than the twelve originally planned.

Five years of development. Three delays. An original 2025 target that has become a 2027 reality. The A350F programme is beginning to rhyme with another famous Boeing delay, and Airbus's competitors are watching closely.

What Keeps Going Wrong

The same problem keeps appearing in every delay announcement. Spirit AeroSystems, which supplies fuselage sections for the A350 family, has been unable to deliver components at the pace and quality level Airbus requires. The supply chain disruption is not a single incident, it is a structural issue that has persisted across multiple programme reviews since 2023. The manufacture of the A350F's main deck cargo door, designed to be the largest carbon-fibre cargo opening in the world at 4.5 metres wide and 4.3 metres tall, has faced component delays specifically in Spain, compounding the fuselage supply problem from the US. 

Airbus delivered 351 aircraft in the first half of 2026 including 26 A350s and 10 A330s, targeting approximately 870 aircraft for the full year. The passenger A350 line is running, but at six aircraft per month against an original 2026 target of ten, a rate gap that reflects how severely the Spirit AeroSystems disruption has impaired the programme's ability to scale. Airbus is unlikely to increase beyond six A350s per month in 2026 despite previous expectations of nine per month in 2025 and ten per month by 2026. The freighter variant shares the same production constraints as the passenger jets, in a competition for factory resources, revenue-generating passenger aircraft take priority over test aircraft. 

Who Is Waiting and What They Are Flying in the Meantime

Customers for the A350F include Air France, Air Lease Corporation, Cathay Pacific, CMA CGM, Etihad Airways, Martinair, Silk Way West Airlines, Singapore Airlines and STARLUX Airlines. Air China Cargo firmed up ten A350F orders in 2026, making it the first mainland Chinese customer for the type. Every one of those operators placed orders expecting 2025 or 2026 deliveries and is now working around a 2027 reality.

The interim solution across the board is keeping older aircraft flying longer. Boeing 777Fs, the aircraft the A350F is designed to eventually replace for many operators, are being re-leased and retained well beyond original retirement windows. Airlines are extending existing widebody leases to maintain route networks while waiting for the next-generation freighter to arrive. That extension has a direct cost, older 777Fs burn more fuel per tonne-kilometre than the A350F will, and every extra year of 777F operation is a year of higher carbon emissions and operating costs against the more efficient alternative.

Whether Boeing Is Winning From Airbus's Delay

As of early 2026, Airbus holds a 54% share of new large-freighter orders compared to Boeing's 777-8F, which had secured 68 orders from seven customers. The A350F leads on total orderbook depth — 101 orders from 14 customers as of April 2026. Boeing's 777-8F has fewer orders but a more concentrated customer base including FedEx, Qatar Airways and Lufthansa Cargo, operators who made long-term commitments to a type that has its own certification delay story, though Boeing is currently targeting 777-8F delivery ahead of the A350F.

If the A350F first flight slips beyond December 2026, the six-month certification window to achieve H2 2027 delivery becomes extremely tight. Airbus targets the A350F first flight before end-2026, with certification and first delivery still planned for late 2027, and the company is maintaining that the latest change moves only the first flight without altering the stated delivery target. That is technically accurate. It is also a position that requires everything else to go exactly to plan from the moment the test aircraft lifts off. 

The cargo door is a carbon-fibre engineering first. The supply chain is under pressure across two continents. The first flight has moved without the delivery date moving yet. Anyone who has watched the 777X programme knows what that sequence can look like when the pressure builds.