Airbus delivered the first production A350-900 to Qatar Airways on Monday during a ceremony at the manufacturer’s production facility in Toulouse, France. Plans call for the airplane—the first of 43 A350-900s and 37 A350-1000s on order by Qatar—to fly the airline’s Doha-Frankfurt route starting next month. The state-owned airline placed its A350 order, which it valued at $16 billion, at the 2007 Paris Air Show.

“The arrival of this new generation of aircraft type represents a moment of great symbolic national pride for the State of Qatar, and I know its delivery will be met with excitement at its new home, Hamad International Airport, which was built for advanced aircraft types such as this,” said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker. Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth during its 17 years of operation, to the point where today it flies 142 aircraft to 145 destinations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.

The A350-900 gained European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification on September 30 and U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval on November 12. The respective awards came after a fleet of five test aircraft accumulated more than 2,600 flight test hours since first flight on June 14, 2013. The family of aircraft, which also includes the A350-1000 and A350-800, had drawn firm orders for 778 airplanes from 41 customers by the end of November.

In preparation for the launch of A350 operations, Qatar Airways has begun using Airbus’s recently certified three-tier full type-rating course that combines the new Airbus Cockpit Experience (ACE) laptop-based familiarization with a new Airbus Pilot Transition (APT+) CAE Flight Training Device, and the new CAE full-motion flight simulator (FFS). Qatar plans to ultimately perform its pilot training for the A350 at its own training center, as will other large airlines that have ordered the type. However Airbus plans three new regional centers of its own; construction on Airbus Asia has started in Singapore, and plans call for operations to start in the first quarter of 2015. In New Delhi, an A320 satellite training center will open next year, followed by the Airbus Mexico Training Center, scheduled to start operations in the first half of 2016.

The transition to the A350 from the A330 takes eight days of differences training, requiring no line flying under supervision and no initial line check, although EASA requires two sectors of "familiarization" flying. The common type rating allows for the use of the APT+ and no need at all for the FFS. More than 80 percent of A350 customers already operate A330s.

Powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines, the A350-900 can carry 315 passengers a distance of 7,750 nm. Total Trent XWB testing exceeded 17,360 cycles during 8,000 hours’ bench and rig running in Europe and North America. Roll-Royce plans a further Trent XWB endurance test in early 2015, noted program director Simon Burr during a press briefing some three weeks ahead of delivery to Qatar. “In-service engines [incorporate] lots of changes, so we'll run another sample [which will lead to] more maturity and the latest configuration,” he said. The company is preparing a new test facility in Dahlewitz, Germany, where it plans to test an “enhanced” Trent XWB fan that weighs about 100 pounds less than the fan installed on existing engines, according to Burr.

On Bed 60 at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, extended-range operations involving more than 3,000 cycles approached 900 hours and included three 420-minute diversion cycles and a test performed when the three engine shafts ran continuously out of balance. Burr said he doubts that the Trent XWB’s “demonstrated eligibility” for 420-minute clearance—405 minutes at maximum continuous thrust, plus 15 minutes at hold thrust—“will ever be passed.” The initial A350-900 production variant has gained approval for 370-minute diversions.

The engine manufacturer has logged almost 150 hours of ground running of the more-powerful Trent XWB-97, which achieved 99,000 pounds thrust during the first week of testing and has provided “a huge amount of learning,” said Burr. By the beginning of December, the first XWB-97 underwent assenbly and two others had “come off build,” but the company still had “a huge amount to do” associated with certification work, he added. Rolls-Royce expects the XWB-97 to fly for the first time in the third quarter of 2015.

With additional reporting by Ian Goold and Thierry Dubois