Airbus A350-900

The A350-900 is the Airbus long-haul twin, built mostly of carbon-fibre composites (53 percent of the airframe by weight, according to Airbus). In this data Delta flies it.

A four-engine airliner landing at sunset over approach lights — Illustrative photo. It doesn't identify an aircraft type or airline. Photo: photoman0, DepositPhotos Standard licence.

2,090gallons per airborne hour
74.3seat-miles per gallon
295seats per flight on average
22,610gallons burned per flight

What the figures say

Airbus A350-900 ranks 13 of 25 types for seat-miles per gallon in 2025, at 74.3. The Boeing 737-800, the most common type in the table, flew 79.1, so a gallon on the Airbus A350-900 carried a seat 6.1% less far. Over 1,000 miles, one seat on this type accounts for about 131 kg of CO2 from the fuel burned.

US airlines burned 363 million gallons on the Airbus A350-900 in 2025, 1.9% of the fuel burned on all scheduled passenger flying, over 174 thousand airborne hours and 16 thousand departures. The average flight spent 10.8 hours in the air and burned 22,610 gallons.

Since 2018, when it was first flown in volume, the type's figure has fallen from 76.9 to 74.3 seat-miles per gallon (3.3%). Its best year was 2020, at 82.6. The average flight got shorter, from 11.9 to 10.8 hours in the air, which tends to raise fuel burn per seat-mile, because take-off and climb take a larger share of the fuel on a short flight.

What one seat costs the climate

CO2 for one seat on an Airbus A350-900, from the fuel burned, at the 2025 average.

66 kgover 500 miles
131 kgover 1,000 miles
262 kgover 2,000 miles

Airbus A350-900 seat-miles per gallon across all US airlines flying it, by year, from the first year it was flown in volume.

Who flies it, and how they burn

Airbus A350-900 by airline, 2025

Airline	Fuel (million gallons)	Gallons per airborne hour	Seats per flight	Hours per flight	Seat-miles per gallon
Delta Air Lines	363	2,090	295	10.8	74.3

Similar-sized aircraft

These types carry within about 25 seats of the Airbus A350-900, so they compete for the same routes.

Boeing 787-1086.2 seat-miles per gallon, 1,976 gallons per hour Airbus A330-90078.6 seat-miles per gallon, 1,844 gallons per hour Airbus A330-30069.4 seat-miles per gallon, 2,088 gallons per hour Boeing 777-20062.4 seat-miles per gallon, 2,413 gallons per hour

How to read this. Fuel is what airlines issued to the type in 2025, as filed with the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, counted only for the hours spent on scheduled passenger flights and divided by the hours in the air. It includes fuel burned taxiing and holding, so it's higher than the cruise figure in a manual. CO2 is 9.75 kg per gallon of jet fuel.

More from Airbus

Browse the Airbus manufacturer hub and its other profiled types:

Nearby in fuel efficiency

Types on either side of this one in the seat-miles per gallon table, regardless of size:

Boeing 787-873.0 seat-miles per gallon Airbus A320-20074.0 seat-miles per gallon Boeing 787-974.5 seat-miles per gallon Airbus A330-20076.1 seat-miles per gallon

Aircraft references

Wikipedia: Airbus A350-900

Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Schedule T-2 fuel and airborne hours; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor. See the methodology and flight-hour definitions.

Back to all aircraft types, or see how the airlines compare on the airline pages.