British Airways has taken delivery of its first A350-1000 at Airbus Headquarters in Toulouse, France, making it the first operator of the variant within International Airlines Group (IAG) (IAG).

The first British Airways A350-1000, registered G-XWBA, arrived on July 27, 2019, at its base in London-Heathrow Airport (LHR).

British Airways will initially use the aircraft to fly between London and Madrid prior to flying long-haul routes from September 2019, to Dubai, followed by services to Toronto, Tel Aviv, and Bangalore.

In total, the British national carrier ordered 18 A350-1000s which are due to replace the Boeing 747-400 aircraft currently in the fleet.

British Airways operates a fleet of over 150 Airbus aircraft from the smallest A318 to the largest A380. Iberia, which is also part of IAG, already operates five of the smaller A350-900s.

At the end of June 2019, the A350 XWB Family had received 893 firm orders from 51 customers worldwide.