Airbus announced on Thursday that Scandinavia’s SAS has received their first of eight Airbus A350XWBs on order. In earlier news, SAS announced new sustainable onboard packaging.
Yesterday, Airbus announced the delivery of SAS’s first Airbus A350-900 (XWB) out of a total of eight on order through direct purchase and lease contracts. SAS also has 54 A320neo Family aircraft on order which will join their Airbus fleet of 51 A320 Family and 17 A330 & A340 Family aircraft. The airline’s new A350-900 will be arranged in a three cabin configuration with 40 SAS Business, 32 SAS Plus and 228 SAS Go seats, for a total capacity of 300. The inaugural revenue service flight will take place on January 28, 2020 on the Copenhagen-Chicago route.
With carbon fiber wings and fuselage, the latest aerodynamic design and Highly efficient Rolls Royce engines, the A350XWB promises a 25% reduction in fuel burn and emissions. As of October 31, 2019, Airbus had received 913 firm A350XWB orders from 50 global customers.
Sustainable Onboard Packaging
Last week, SAS announced that they had launched new sustainable packaging for their award winning ‘New Nordic by SAS’ food concept, which will save up to 51 tons of plastic annually. The new cube packaging is part of SAS’s goal of having 100% sustainable materials in customer offerings by 2030. In the November 21st announcement, SAS’ EVP & Commercial Officer, Karl Sandlund said,
“Every day we develop our service offering and constantly evaluate everything we load onboard. We remove what is not needed and work to find innovative solutions for our materials and packaging. The New Nordic by SAS food concept served in the cube is an excellent example of how we align our onboard services with our sustainability goals. It is one of many steps toward a more sustainable aviation – the most significant actions being the renewal of our fleet, increasing biofuel use and supporting the development of electric aircraft.”
Because some plastic is often required due to safety requirements, SAS suppliers have come up with an innovative solution that replaces the inside plastic container inside the ‘cube’ with an FSC approved paper solution with a plant-based plastic coating. Between December 2019 and May 2020 changes will also been made to the cutlery, where only the necessary items will be included in each cube. The cutlery is also made from vegetable oil and is compliant with the European single use plastics (SUP) directive.
Source(s): Airbus, SAS