Brazil’s TAM air has welcomed the first of their 27 beautiful Airbus 350 XWBs. This follows Qatar’s receipt of the 350 in January, followed by Vietnam Airlines and Finnair.
The 348 seat TAM plane has a two class layout:
- ‘Premium Business’ cabin with 30 forward-facing business class seats arranged 2-2-2. All seats convert into fully-flat beds and have a personal 15.4 inch HD video screens
- 318 seats are crammed into the Economy in a 3/3/3 layout admittedly with an 18″ seat width
Their A350 has the same seats and cabin design as sister carrier LAN’s 787-9s.
By comparison, Qatar has 36 lie flat seats in Business Class and 247 seats in Economy. Vietnam has opted for 305 seats, with 29 in business class, 45 in premium economy and 231 in economy. Finnair has a three class aircraft with 46 flat bed Business Class seats, 43 Economy Comfort seats (with up to 4” of added legroom) and 208 Economy seats.
TAM will start operating the A350 in January 2016 between Sao Paulo and Manaus, Brazil, as part of continued training and crew familiarisation. This will be followed by Sao Paulo to Miami service in March and then Sao Paulo to Madrid from April, 2016.
The long-range A350 has a carbon fibre fuselage and wings and Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines which are intended to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and maintenance costs by up to 25 percent.
In the next year, TAM will be rebranded as LATAM following its amalgamation with Chile’s LAN as detailed in this video.
Personally, I think LANTAM sounds better than LATAM. Either way, I cannot wait to fly the 350.
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Tam also announced that next year they will start selling premium economy on their a350