About time – From chilli crab to hot dogs in less than 19 hours

I preface my input by admitting I am a great fan of the A350-9 and would like to see it flying the “Red Rat” but this article now has me somewhat concerned, if I was a prospective purchaser of same, in particular the ULR version I would be in huge talks with the experts and manufacturers. This article emphasizes again that the fwd underbelly has to be inactive when in ULR mode, again it identifies that by “altering” the fuel supply plumbing an increase of on-board fuel results eg by 24Tonnes, WOW, that’s a lot of plumbing?. Now I understand that with a very high fuel load the C.W.T may well bring this A/C C of G at or close to limits at takeoff, that situation would improve quickly as fuel is used normally first from this tank in flight, or, in this configuration is the fwd hold deactivation due to structural limitations due to high fuel uplift. It would probably be flippant of me to suggest additional tank-age aft to compensate for the fwd hold non usage penalty because Airbus would surely have thought of that; it would be interesting to hear their reasoning. I can see a room full of bean counters madly trying to justify such a great fwd underbelly space deactivation, I mean surely, whilst this aircraft is targeted for the high end paying customer U.L.R there must be a fix or answer why say up to 3Tonnes of freight could be accommodated upfront. It will be interesting to see what Boeing come up with, at least they know what they have to beat.