Originally Posted by
The Lev
AC has a pretty good (not perfect) track record of buying the best then available aircraft. When they ordered the 777 and original 787's, the A350 was not yet available. I suspect in ~10 years when AC is ready to replace the 777's, they will take a long, hard look at the A350-1000.
Wouldn't it also come down to whether or not AC happened to be in a position to commit billions of dollars to buying dozens of widebody production slots, at around the time Airbus was selling those slots - and on a delivery calendar that would then fit AC's operational need?
A quick Google tells me that Airbus had over 750 orders for A350s before the first unit was delivered; the majority of those orders were placed before the first test model left the ground. Of the ~780 orders in place before the first aircraft was delivered, just under 600 have now been delivered into operation.
...lest anyone think I'm singling Airbus out, there are also ~900 orders in the pipeline for Dreamliners, which Boeing is filling at something like 160-170 aircraft per year.