Airbus A350 freighter livery revealed; winners announced

During a special ceremony at the Paris Air Show, plane maker Airbus announced the winners of the A350 freighter livery design competition and revealed the final livery design.

With more than 4000 entries received by the end of the contest period, for the plane maker it was a daunting task to pick the winner. The jury, a specially selected internal Airbus committee including specialist livery design and brand experts, had to finally select two similar submissions and combined them as the final winning design.

The winners included two young brothers Quinnten (16) and Ellisten (12) Iversen from Calgary in Canada and John Feehan (57), a graphic designer from Dublin in Ireland.

For Iversen brothers, aviation is at the centre of their life. They love plane spotting and model collecting and plan to become pilots. “I was reading the daily aviation news when the idea of “packaging boxes” suddenly clicked in my head. I sat down with my brother and we started to bring our concept to life together,” said Quinnten Iversen.

The Irish graphic designer confessed that he joined the competition under the encouragement of his son who is passionate about aviation. “My son’s enthusiasm for aviation affected the entire family. He pushed me to enter the contest which was a good challenge to think outside the norm. I couldn’t pass-up the opportunity to work with a leader in aviation,” said Feehan.

The prize includes two separate fully-paid round trips from their country of residence to Paris first and later to Toulouse in France. The first trip will include an invitation to Le Bouget Airshow in Paris, France where the final design of the livery is revealed and they will be presented a small scale model of the A350F in the new Livery (1/100 scale). The second trip will include an invitation to the A350 Airbus Final Assembly line at the time of the first flight of the A350F aircraft in the new livery in Toulouse.

Airbus announced the A350F aircraft livery design contest last year for its latest, super-efficient and reliable freighter aircraft. The global contest was on from 3 October to 28 of November 2022.

The A350 freighter is being built now and the production is progressing at the Airbus plants. In April this year Airbus announced that the fist metal-cuts for the brand new production freighter had just taken place in Nantes with the machining of the first parts for the Centre Wing Box (CWB). The teams in Nantes had then also produced the first external foot frames, which join the CWB to the lateral fuselage shells. The winning design will be painted on the first A350 freighter aircraft scheduled to be ready by the end of 2024.

Since its launch in 2021, challenging the domination of its rival Boeing in the larger freighter segment, Airbus has secured firm order for 39 A350Fs.

Based on Airbus’ commercially successful A350 passenger aircraft programme, the A350F is designed to reduce fuel burn and carbon emissions by up to 40% compared to freighters currently flying. Advanced materials and latest generation efficient engines with state of the art technologies will bring down the weight of the aircraft and lower fuel burn.

The A350F promised to give the large air freight market an aircraft that will be much easier and more efficient to operate. It will also require less maintenance and deliver up to 40% savings in operational costs compared to current in service freighters.

Recently Airbus announced the delay of entry into service of the new twinjet from 2025 to 2026 but promised that the operators will receive the freighters with a higher payload capability than initially planned. At the time of the launch, the platform was marketed for a 109-tonne payload, which now has been revised to 111 tonnes of payload. The company has also announced a change in the main deck cargo door. The designers have expanded from its initial width of 165 inches to 175 inches making it as the largest main deck cargo door available in the market.